


Under Distant Moon and Star

by LupusYondergirl



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 17:53:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupusYondergirl/pseuds/LupusYondergirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She never expected to be more than an Imperial City street rat, but an accident of birth shoved her into the center of events that would rip Morrowind apart. For two centuries she's run from the guilt of destroying her adopted home and all she loved. Fate caught up to her in Skyrim. Now Almsi is realizing the ancient words 'dragon-born and far-star marked' have more than one meaning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Author's note: As soon as information about Skyrim was revealed, and they said the hero would be called Dragonborn, I couldn't help but think of the connection to the Nerevarine of Morrowind, who had been called the same thing in the prophesies. The idea that they could possibly be one and the same (since the _Nerevarine is effectively immortal at this point)_ came to mind immediately. _

_Spoilers for Skyrim, all current Skyrim DLC, and Morrowind. This will be set in the Skyrim timeline, but with flashbacks to the time of Morrowind. If you haven't played Morrowind, The Imperial Library (imperial-library dot info) has a pretty comprehensive summary of the game. But you should play it since it is an extraordinary RPG, and very, very cheap on either PC or xbox._

* * *

  
_From seventh sign of eleventh generation,_   
_Neither Hound nor Guar, nor Seed nor Harrow,_   
_But Dragon-born and far-star-marked,_   
_Outlander Incarnate beneath Red Mountain,_   
_Blessed Guest counters seven curses,_   
_Star-blessed hand wields thrice-cursed blade,_   
_To reap the harvest of the unmourned house._   


  
_\- The Lost Prophecy_   
_as recorded in the Apographa of the Dissident Priests_   


_16 Frostfall 4E 200_

_So this is how it ends._

Almsi's nose filled with the smell of blood and dirt, the remains of the Stormcloack beheaded before her only feet away. Gore coated the block, sticking to her skin and hair. She closed her eyes to the sun. _Warm._ It had been a very long time since she felt warm. Skyrim was a cold country, and her people were never made for such weather. To die warm would be a fine thing. Probably more than she deserved.

It was easy to ignore the priest. The shrill Imperial commander was another story, though.

 _I outrank you_ , she had thought briefly, looking at the woman who ordered her beheading. No one would believe her, though… if her rank even mattered any longer. It had been so many years since she had even been in Tamriel. Mentioning it was pointless.

Come to think of it, she really had no idea where an Operative of the Blades would fall compared to a Captain of the Imperial Legion. Back then the Legion didn't even _have_ a rank called Captain.

No, she was better off keeping silent. It would just invite too many strange questions. And really… this is what she had wanted. Why argue against it?

There was a breeze, blowing her hair across her forehead while she waited for the blow. Thunder sounded in the distance.

_It didn't look like rain…_

No matter.

* * *

_22 First Seed 3E 427_

"Hey, elf," she was being shaken, jostled by someone much larger than her. "Get up, elf."

Opening her eyes, Almsi saw an enormous Nord leaning over her. Red-cheeked, he looked uncomfortably warm in his armor. Nords always seemed to be too warm. From the high slit of a window she could tell it was just barely dawn. A hint of Masser was still visible in the brightening sky.

"What?" she said, voice rough from weeks of disuse.

"Time to go."

Eyes widening, she shot backwards, scrambling on all fours to the wall. "No!" _A quick drop and a snap,_ that was what her friend Ralen had joked. But not for a first offense… never for a first offense. She hadn't even _killed_ anyone… well, not that they knew of. Her hand went up to her neck reflexively. "No, they said two months. Two months and I can go. That was it!"

"What?"

He looked confused. More than how most Nords always looked slightly confused. She briefly debated throwing herself at him, begging for mercy… but who knew how he would react. "I don't want to die," was what she said instead, voice sounding small and scared _. "Please."_

The man groaned at that. "Fucking elves," he mumbled, quietly, to himself. "Enough with the drama. We're not going to _hang_ you, girl. You're free."

"…Free?"

"Emperor's orders."

Now _that_ made no sense. "Emperor? What?"

"Don't ask me," he said with a shrug. "They tell me the emperor wants you free, I'm not one to question it. Wants you on the next boat to Morrowind. Maybe they'll tell you when you get there?"

" _Morrowind?"_

He just shrugged. "Like I said, it wasn't my call. Come on." Following him down the hall, she tried not to wince at the bright light that was creeping up into the windows. He was babbling. "You got yourself a big chance here," the man was saying. "New start, new place. You can be anybody. Make a real honest life for yourself."

"I… guess?" She had no idea how to respond. Being dumped friendless and penniless off a boat didn't lend itself to an honest life in any way she could see.

"Give it a shot," he said with an air of finality. They went on, where she was told to sign things, passing through rooms and checkpoints. "Gotta be exciting for you," he said after following her into a rough looking carriage, the Legion's symbol on the side. "Chance to go home, all that."

"Home?"

"Morriwind." He looked at her as though she were slow witted.

"I grew up in Saint Alessia's."

He stared at her blankly. "Saint Alessia's Home for Girls," she said. "You know, that big orphanage in the Temple district? The one that makes the whole west end smell like cabbage? Never been to Morrowind."

His optimism couldn't be crushed. "Well, there you go! You really do have a chance at a whole new life, then!"

At last, they reached the docks. "Look," the guard told her as she stood on the plank walkway, "try it out. A nice young girl shouldn't be crawling in windows and robbing shops. I got a daughter your age; it's too young to go throwing your life away. They don't give you just a couple months for a second offense. You don't want to lose a hand."

It was a very sweet thing to say. For a moment she was filled with guilt, all her sins and crimes coming back to her. "I'll try."

"Good," he smiled, waving her off.

 _I highly doubt he has a forty year old daughter at home_ , she thought, mutely following the captain below deck.

Not being a Mer, that guard apparently had no idea she was older than _him_.

Still, his heart was in the right place. And the more she thought about it, the more she became excited about Morrowind. The Imperial City was a city of men. Imperials, of course, but also Nords, Redguards, and Bretons. They were everywhere. Bosmer and Altimer were rare, Dunmer rarer still. She was an oddity, something that raised eyebrows. Something that made people whisper behind their hands as she passed.

It would be a welcome change, Almsi thought, to finally be just another face in the crowd.

* * *

_16 Frostfall 4E 200_

When the thunder sounded again, it was accompanied by shouts. The blow she was expecting didn't come. As the screaming continued, Almsi opened her eyes. A cold feeling spread through her body, radiating out from her stomach. Cold, despite the flames. After a moment Almsi realized what that feeling was: terror.

She almost laughed. After centuries of recklessness that would make even a skooma addict wince, here she was, honestly worried she would faint.

 _"Dragon!"_ someone shouted. It really didn't need to be said. They were all staring right at the beast, twice as large as a house, louder than any storm.

Rolling away from the block, it took a couple stumbles before she was able to stand. Her tied hands didn't make getting around any easier.

"Hey! Hey elf!" Glancing around, she saw a big Nord, hair hanging free. He had been with her and the other prisoners all the way from the border. He was the only one among the Stormcloaks that actually talked to her. The rest just stared, suspicious. There was no love between the dark elves and the people of Skyrim, though. It wasn't surprising. "Dunmer, follow me," he called again, gesturing with a jerk of his neck. "This is our chance to escape!"

Chasing after him, she gave one last glance back. The dragon howled again, spraying flames at their heels. Almsi didn't need to see that again. She followed the Stormcloak.

Running is so simple. Just legs. Legs and feet, moving quickly. That's what you would think. If you ever tried to run with your hands bound you would quickly learn otherwise. Neither she nor the blonde man could maintain their balance without their arms in motion. Stumbling and panting, they finally made it into the keep, nearly toppling over.

"What do you think it means?" the stormcloak had asked his leader. The man had been gagged, something about his voice had terrified the Imperials. She hadn't quite gathered what that could be… he sounded perfectly normal. His accent was heavy, but reminiscent of the upper class of Skyrim. It was a voice of someone used to issuing orders, and having them obeyed, sure… but there wasn't anying inherently strange about that.

Neither knew what the dragon meant, no more than she did. They were all agreed, though- it had to mean _something_. Almsi decided that when a beast from legend shows up to personally interrupt your execution, it's generally wise to assume it's a sign. Had it been even five minutes later… she would already have been dead. It wasn't the voice of Azura… but it probably wasn't something to be ignored, either.

_Oh good. Giant cosmic messages. My favorite. Always ends well._

Splitting up from the other Stormcloaks, most of whom were nursing injuries, she and Ralof made their way up the tower. The dragon had other plans for them, though. Back pressed to the wall where the beast had managed to break through, she could smell her hair burning. One of the Nords fared far worse. He had been on the stairs right in front of where the dragon crashed the wall open. "Down," Ralof shouted. The man froze, clearly terrified.

"Get _down_ ," she hissed. If he would have laid on his belly, the short remains of the wall could have protected him. He appeared too scared to move.

They both turned away, not wanting to see his flesh after it began to sear and melt. The screams stopped after only a few seconds, thankfully.

She had been ready to continue up once the dragon left, but the Nord stopped her. "Look there," he said, pointing to a half-fallen building not far from the break in the tower. "I think we can make the jump."

She wasn't entirely sure about that. "Hmm," was all she said, evaluating the distance.

"I'll be right behind you!" Neither, apparently, was he.

 _What's the worst that could happen?_ she mused, climbing onto the ledge. It was only after she was in the air that Almsi found herself fondly remembering levitation spells. _Never thought I'd miss **that**_ **.** Tucking her body as small as possible, she managed to roll as she hit the ground… right into a flaming bookshelf.

"N'wah!" she screamed, jumping up and batting at the flames. They had taken her weapons, of course, but also found it necessary to give her horrible sackcloth clothes in place of her armor and robes. It was far from fire-repellent.

She didn't care about the robes, not really. Or the armor. Neither were special or valuable. The rest of her stuff, though… that had to be found.

True to his word, Ralof was right behind her. "You all right?" he asked, running past without waiting for an answer. "Let's go!"

Sprinting through what remained of Helgen, they made their way towards an ancient keep. At one point a man from the Legion called out to her, saying she should follow him. He had been kind, far more than necessary or expected. The man had even promised to return her remains to Morrowind. It was a gesture of amazing thoughtfulness. Something she was sure came from him- not the Legion.

Of course, that was the problem. He had been kind… about taking part in her execution. No, she would follow the Stormcloak for now. At least he hadn't been trying to kill her.

 _Funny_ , she mused as the door slammed closed. _I thought I was perfectly ready to die._

"Here," he said, once they were inside. "Let me get your hands free."

"No need," she said. He looked confused. "Rope burns," she reminded him. "Dunmer don't. I cast a spell while we were hiding behind that broken wall." She had found it fairly rude that the other Stormcloaks hadn't seen fit to help her, but they were distracted. She wouldn't hold it against them.

There was a dead Nord woman on the ground. Ralof suggested Almsi take her gear, and without waiting for her answer, turned his back politely so she could change. The armor was too large, of course, but she didn't complain. _At least I'm not an Altmer,_ she thought, cinching the dead stranger's belt tighter and cuffing up the pants so she wouldn't step on the hem. Too big was more easily fixed than too small. Picking up the small axe, she gave it a few swings. "It'll do," she told him.

"You've used an axe before," he said. It was an observation, not a question. People in Skyrim seemed to do that a lot, phrasing things as questions when their tone made it clear they weren't asking anything. They apparently liked reassurance.

"I'd prefer a sword, but given the circumstances…" she shrugged, smiling.

"I know the feeling," he said, checking the doors. "A board with a nail is better than nothing." He grumbled to himself, yanking fruitlessly on the handle. "They're locked."

Before she could comment they both froze, taking up positions on either side of the gate. Voices were drawing near, _Imperial_ voices.

A key in the lock. She held her breath, waiting for them, wanting that element of surprise. The gate opened, and she jumped. Axe high, Almsi brought it down with a shout on the first man's head, prying it free with a foot on the corpse's shoulder. Ralof was squaring off with another not far away. A familiar voice shouted at them.

 _She goes to the block_.

Ralof turned to face the woman at the same time. He, too, was wearing a grim smile. The captain might have been tough, but she wasn't a fair match against two angry, grudge carrying opponents with battleaxes.

"Maybe one of them has the key," he said, wiping a splatter of her blood from his face.

"Already on it," Almsi was rooting through the woman's pockets. "Key!" Something else caught her eye. Flipping the body over, she smiled. "And _this_ is mine!"

Yanking the dagger free, she wiped down the handle. It bothered her to think of anyone else touching it. "Very nice," Ralof said, looking surprised. "I didn't know the dwarves ever worked in glass."

"Just the once." She put it on her hip, feeling more herself again. "Sort of… a family heirloom." It's siblings Wraithguard and Sunder had been lost for many years, likely still buried in the ruins of her home at Tel Uvirith, or melted from the lava. Keening had never left her side, though- even if only for reasons of practicality. She had never worn heavy armor, she had never fought with a hammer. But a dagger? A dagger she could use.

Without further commentary, they went on. Down, down, down… through tunnels and dungeons, until finally, they came to another room will signs of life. A meal spread out, and a man slumped over the table. "Let's see if we can find any potions," he suggested. It wasn't a bad plan. They were able to come up with a few… painfully few. He looked at the stock with an expression of concern.

"Have you been injured?"

"It's nothing," he said. She stared at him and he turned, revealing a blade wound across his left shoulder.

"Here," she offered, raising her hands. It was an easy wound to heal with magic, and he nodded, grateful, once she had finished. She knew Nords didn't trust magic as a general rule, but she also knew they were an immensely practical people. Practical people could look beyond distrust when it came to healing.

As they finished the search of the room, she glanced again at the body. Hands were both on the table, one reaching for the other. Looking closer, she could see a ring just barely placed over one finger.

"You stupid fucking fetcher," she said under her breath, seeing why the man had dropped dead without any visible injury. Retrieving the ring, she accidentally cut the corpse's finger with a point of the star. He didn't complain.

She held it in her hand, looking down for a moment. A vivid memory came to the surface; unwanted and foreign, it was the thoughts from the mind of a long-dead man. Golden eyes in a golden face, gaze intense across a table. _…I would be new,_ Vivec said, gripping his hands from across the table, _and believe in the one moon and star as your banner does._

_Lies. So many lies._

But then… he couldn't help himself. Vivec was always a poet, and poets lied. That's what poets _did_. He couldn't be blamed for being what he was. Might as well complain about a guar eating your boots. Maybe he wasn't even lying. Maybe everything that came later was… well, who knows. She wasn't there, after all. Despite what they said, she wasn't _him_. The hero. The legend. She had never been him.

But the ring was hers, despite all that, and she put it on.

Two of three. One more left.

They continued on. She could hear voices. A quick glance at her new companion told her he did as well. _"Torture!"_ Ralof seemed deeply offended by this, whispering the word in a hiss. Apparently it was looked down upon in Skyrim.

He was lucky he had never been to Morrowind. There were Telvanni masters who had elevated it to an art form.

These men, fortunately, were _not_ Telvanni masters.

The two of the quickly stripped the room of anything valuable. Finding a small cache of weapons set aside in a corner, they pawed through them, looking for anything more deadly, more useful. He was tossing things aside, making comments about craftsmanship as he went. " _Junk_ ," he said, shoving throwing a pile of staves to the ground.

Almsi bent, digging through them. He might not see the value in magic, but she certainly did. Most were common, with simple enchantments. Little more than branches, really. The Imperial Legion had never really done right by their battle mages. Anyone of skill would probably learn provide their own equipment. One though….

"Yes," she gasped, grabbing it. "Thanks to Azura." This was not Legion issue, not even close. Fingers tracing the heavy Daedric script, she smiled. Keening, she could live without. The ring… well, she suspected that would find its way back to her eventually. Daedric gifts couldn't really be _lost_ , not forever. Not even if you wanted them gone. The staff was her only real concern when it seemed she might find her possessions. It was the only thing that was _hers_. Not Indoril Nerevar's. Not the Nerevarine. Just Almsi's.

"Is that a good one?" the Nord asked.

She looked at it, considering that. It wasn't a magnificent staff. It was a _very_ good staff… but it wasn't the stuff of legends. It was simple, once just one of many identical weapons. Not the staff of a Telvanni master, but certainly the property of someone high enough to be taken seriously. "It's mine. I've had it a long time."

He looked curious. "How long?" the man asked after an abnormal pause. It wasn't the question he _wanted_ to ask, but it was as close as he would get. _How old are you?_ That was what he wondered. Men always did. They seemed to view Mer lifespans with a mix of equal parts curiosity, envy, and revulsion.

She stood up, holding it tightly. Her knuckles had gone white around the tarnished silver.

_He was so pleased when she came back to announce her success. She could tell he hadn't expected her to return with good news. "This will be very good for us," Master Aryon said, beaming. He didn't smile often enough, but news of a new ally on the house council was cause for celebration. "Very good. I need allies now." He spun on his heel, muttering "don't go, I don't want to forget this," and retreating to dig around in a cabinet. "I know it's here…" he mumbled._

_Aryon never seemed to know where he had left anything. She once came in to find him searching frantically for an amulet... that he had been wearing around his neck at the time. Almsi suspected things as mundane as objects and his corporeal form weren't particularly important when he could traverse the realms of Oblivion with a wave of his hand. Probably why his hands and cuffs were usually covered in smears of ink. He mumbled to himself as he looked._

_"I set it aside for you last night… I know it's got to be… Damnation, where… Ah!"_

_Turning back, he was holding a silver staff, topped with the likeness of a monster. Green jewels shone between its teeth like some kind of unholy fire._

_"Here it is!" he said. "It's a Silver Staff of Peace."_

_"For me?" She hadn't been expecting anything. Maybe some coin but not a gift. Especially not a gift he had evidently set aside just for her._

_"It's tradition," he said._

_"What do I do with it?"_

_He raised an eyebrow. "You don't know how to use a staff?"_

_"Not any staff with **peace** in the name," she said. She had wondered if it was just a badge of office, something to wander around holding and looking important._

_"It's just the name," he said with a laugh. Almsi suspected he tolerated her because her ignorance amused him. "That's the traditional gift a patron in House Telvanni gives to their new protégée." He paused. "Well, it does paralyze people as well. I suppose that could make them peaceful. Or give you an opportunity to set them on fire… or just bash them in the head like an angry Orc until they fall down and stop twitching. Whatever strikes your fancy. Far be it for me to tell you how to do your job." He looked pleased with himself when she started to giggle. "In any case, I'm giving it to you. Do with it what you want."_

_She stared at him for a moment, and then at the staff, piecing the information together. Realizing what had happened, Almsi shrieked, throwing her arms around the shocked wizard. As soon as she touched him she regained some semblance of her mind and jumped backwards. "Oh! Oh gods, I'm sorry. I… I'm so sorry, that was completely—"_

_"It's fine," he said, brushing her apologies aside as he shoved his hair back. "It was, um, certainly more enthusiastic than the reaction I got from Galos." No, she couldn't imagine his humorless Mouth shrieking and hugging him, under **any** circumstances. Master Aryon looked to be blushing. "Anyways. There you are. Please try not to waste all your time standing on a platform in Sadrith Mora. You're far too useful for that." _

She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath and returning to the present. With a dragon behind them and more Imperials ahead, she couldn't afford to get lost in old memories. "I got this in Tel Vos," she said. "A gift from an old friend."

"I've never heard of Tel Vos," he said.

"It was on Vvardenfall."

He stared at her. "Oh," the Nord finally said, looking surprised as he put the information into place. "I see. I'm sorry to hear that."

She nodded, thanking him, and suggesting they move on. It wasn't a subject she wanted to discuss in detail.

Just holding the staff, she felt better. More herself. It was funny, her most treasured possession and she wasn't even supposed to keep the thing. Aryon had received it from his patron, and she should have passed it on when she became a patron herself. Almsi couldn't stand the idea of giving it away, though. Instead she spent an unholy sum buying a new, identical, staff from a merchant in Sadrith Mora. The staff from Aryon was _hers_.

That, and using something called the Silver Staff of Peace exclusively to hurt and kill people… well, it was pretty funny. It lived up to the name, at least. Things were always much more peaceful after she finished using it. Aryon had been right about that.

Following Ralof, Almsi stifled a laugh, suspecting that was something she should keep to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

If Ralof noticed her silence, he didn't comment on it.

Things had been going so well. They were nearly out, nearly free. But then she happened to overhear him shouting as he tackled with a large Imperial man.

_"Skyrim is for the Nords!"_

Almsi found that she didn't have much to say after that.

They made camp in the shadow of the mountain. It was dark and, in his estimation, not safe to carry on. Something about werewolves. That was warning enough for her. She had no interest in butting heads with Hircine and his kin.

The following morning he decided she should join up with the Stormcloaks. Almsi was already feeling out of sorts from spending the night outdoors, and being told she, evidently, 'had a bad dream.' Dealing with this was beyond her mental abilities.

"Me? A stormcloak. You're kidding, right?"

"Why not?" She stared at him. "I know what you're thinking," he said, "but you don't need to be a Nord to fight for Skyrim's freedom. You've see the Empire's true face."

The man was so persistent that she agreed to at least go to Windhelm and meet their leader. Well, meet him again.

Of course, it wasn't that easy.

Ralof had taken her to a tiny village called Riverwood. It looked like someplace ripped from a painting of Skyrim you would see in the emperor's sitting room.  _Quaint_  was the term. She didn't think places like this actually existed in the world, but here it was. Tiny shop, perfect little lumbermill, cozy tavern… it was all there, right down to the old woman knitting on her porch and the little boy chasing his dog.

"This is a nice town," she said, genuinely meaning the words.

"My sister pretty much runs the place." He wasn't bragging, judging by his tone. Just giving her the local information. That sister welcomed them both warmly, before offering Almsi a generous amount of food. That, of course, was followed by a request for help.

She left shortly after lunch.

"I must look like a sucker," Almsi said to no one in particular. "It's got to be something about my face that says 'sit back, this idiot will take care of things for you while you eat sweetrolls and get fat.' And now I'm talking to myself, too. Great."

She was, at present, hiking towards a city called Whiterun. It was 'just down the road,' which turned out to be… not exactly accurate. It was just down the road, around the mountain, up the hill, back down again, and across the river. And there were wolves.

A _lot_  of wolves.

Still, wolves weren't as bad as some things. They didn't fly, so that was a definite plus over cliff racers. They didn't shoot fire, either. Just teeth. Really sharp little teeth.

"You'd better have been just a normal wolf," she said to the cooling body as she peeled back the torn leather on her leg. Healing wouldn't help if her armor was healed into the wound. "If I start barking I'll find your ghost and kill that, too."

It took her three days to get there. The guards let her in as soon as the word dragon was mentioned. Evidently word had been spreading.  _Probably shouldn't tell the Jarl I stopped to check out some old ruins on the way,_  she thought, walking through town.  _And to help some people kill a giant._

The first thing she'd seen was an extremely large Nord man in Imperial armor. Glancing down, Almsi was reminded she still wore that dead Stormcloak's equipment. Darting across the street, she ran into the first shop, hoping she wasn't seen.

 _Tavern!_  She looked around with relief. Not just a tavern, it was a tavern operated by a Mer. "I hate to bother," she said, keenly aware of the strange look the Bosmer man gave her, staring at her armor. "Do you have a room I can use to change quickly? My armor was wrecked, and… well, this is all I could get my hands on at the moment. But I'd really like to—"

"Understood completely," he said. "Feel free to use the upstairs."

"Thanks so much!"

Almsi had found several bandits in the ruins. This wasn't her first time penniless in a new place… once they were dead she stripped them of their gear and shoved as much as she could carry into a pack taken from a corpse. Picking quickly through the options, she chose the items that seemed most appropriate.

"What is  _wrong_  with these people?" she mumbled, discarding things. Of the female armors, one had no sleeves. Another laced up the front, but seemed made to leave a gaping opening. A third was nothing more than a fur skirt and a band that wrapped around the breasts. Did they have no idea of the basics of physiology? In thousands of years hadn't the Nords figured out all the important parts that keep people alive are right there in the middle?

Maybe it was some kind of taunt?  _See, I am so strong I will present my organs to you, framed as a perfect target._ She had to assume that. If they were really that stupid how in the world had it taken her people so many years to drive them from Morrowind?

Finally Almsi settled on the most reasonable. Fur armor, with sleeves, that would actually cover her internal organs. It was a bit too low in the front for comfort, but compared to the rest it was solid plate. Boots and gloves, along with a short half-cape, rounded out the gear.

 _I look like a Khajiit,_  she thought, glancing in the mirror and seeing all the fur. But it was warm.

The proprietor happily bought the rest of the armor, and many of the weapons she'd gathered from the tomb. "Been hunting dragur?" he said with a laugh.

"I figured it would net me some coin," she said with a shrug. Almsi didn't like admitting to being poor, but the shopkeeper was exceptionally friendly, and had a very disarming way about him.

"Plenty of coin to be had in those old tombs. Most of the Nords are too superstitious to go in there, too, so it's all sitting right there for folks like us. You find anything good, bring it by. I'll give you a fair deal."

She thanked him and headed out after getting directions to find the Jarl. The layout of the town seemed straightforward. She had been a pickpocket for enough years to learn how things worked, and some facts were universal no matter what country it was.  _Look for the highest spot in town when you want good pickings_ , they used to say _. Shit flows downhill but money flows up._

Needless to say, the Jarl lived on a  _very_  high hill.

On a very high hill with his… Dunmer bodyguard?  _Housecarl_ , she reminded herself.  _The Nords call them a housecarl._

The woman cornered her before she could get close, demanding to know who she was and what business she had with the Jarl.

"Riverwood sent me," she said. "They're asking for aid."

"The Jarl will need to hear about this," she said, leading Almsi towards a man on a raised platform.

Leaning casually to one side, he sat up as she told him about Helgen. Almsi decided she had best omit the part about being executed, not knowing where this Jarl's loyalties fell. After listening to him, the steward, and the woman whose name was Irileth discuss this, she was supremely glad for the quick change of armor. It seemed the Jarl was trying to play both sides in the civil war, but after a moment it became clear he was an Empire man. Despite that, she found herself smiling as he cursed the steward's cautiousness, siding with the Dunmeri woman instead. He would rather risk being pushed into the war than let his people suffer. That, she could respect.

Shuffled over by the Jarl to talk to his wizard, a middle aged Nord who thought far too much of himself, Almsi stood in silence as the man went on and on about how the Jarl had to stop bringing him empty headed adventurers. He began dancing around what he needed, likely expecting resistance. "It's called a dragon stone," the man finally said. "Roughly… eight inches…." His hands shaped the size in air. "It would have markings on it, they might look like scratches to you, but—"

"Hold on," she said, pulling her pack off and setting it on the ground. Kneeling on the stone floor, she rooted through to the bottom to a rock she'd been compelled to grab in the tomb. Something about the area had left her unnerved, and for reasons she didn't understand, it felt... important. "Is this it?"

"I… yes, yes it is," he said, gladly taking it from her. "Perhaps you are a step above the usual rabble."

"How kind of you to say." He didn't notice the sarcasm. Since he seemed content to ignore her, she decided to make use of the enchanting table not far off. There had been soul gems scattered throughout the tomb, and the thin leather of this armor made her think some added protection would be helpful.

"You've done that before," the wizard said, glancing over as she worked.

"I have," Almsi agreed.  _Not since your great grandfather was playing with a wooden sword_ ,  _though,_  she thought, hoping he wouldn't notice how she struggled to remember the basic enchantments against cold.

She was just finishing when the housecarl burst in, demanding the wizard's attention. "Dragon!" he shouted with excitement. It was the exact word she had been thinking, but far from the tone she would have used.

"You should come, too," Irileth said.

"Why?"

It wasn't a polite question, but it seemed a valid one. How was her presence at all needed or wanted? She couldn't imagine the Jarl made a habit of inviting every wandering adventurer to join trusted advisers in giving council. It would be a bizarre way to run a city.

"Because the Jarl said so."

 _Fair enough_.

The two pounded up the stairs and Almsi, seeing no other realistic options, followed.

Once upstairs, a guard told them of an attack on the Watchtower. As soon as the report was made, the Jarl thanked the man kindly, ordering him to get some food and rest. The three made plans, all doing their best to hide their worries. Well, all but the wizard. He seemed to lack the good sense necessary to feel worried.

"My place should be fighting at your side," he told the housecarl. "Like old times." She glanced at him; it had been many years since the Jarl's battlefield days. He and the housecarl must have had a long history.

"No," she shook her head. "Your place is here. Your people need you."

He nodded, agreeing but looking disappointed.

"I don't have time to stand on ceremony, friend," the Jarl said, turning to her. "We need your help once again." He explained how she was the only one with experience against a dragon.

 _Only with running away and hiding,_  she almost said.

But no.

This town… it seemed like such a  _nice_  town. The funny Bosmer shopkeeper who had, indeed, given her a very fair deal when trading with him. The Nord woman who, unprompted, had greeted her in the marketplace like a friend. The Redguard who had suggested she might be interested in mercenary work when noticing her eyeing a display of weapons, before mentioning how he gave that up for his baby. They deserved better than dying in a dragon attack.  _No one_  deserved that. The Jarl, he had shown genuine worry over the fate of his people in Riverwood, and even over the lone guardsman who came to make a report. The Housecarl's protests against him fighting seemed as much out of duty as out of a personal concern for his wellbeing. The way he had replied by telling her it was  _absolutely not_  supposed to be a suicide mission made it clear the concern went both ways.

They were  _good_  people here. It didn't take much to see that. Good people, who were scared and asking for help.

"All right," she finally said.  _I've killed a god,_  she thought.  _How much worse can a dragon be?_

Running with the guards, who were so worried they had to be spurred into action by the words of Irileth, Almsi realized her bravado got the better of her. Again. Seeing the dragon, it took only a split second to remember one thing about killing a god: Almalexia, even in the grip of her worst madness, couldn't  _fly and breathe fire._

_But when she ran, her feet barely touched ground. Faster than the wind, with hair flowing behind, red like the river at sunset._

"Shut  _up_ , Nerevar," she hissed under her breath. "Leave the poetry to Vivec." The memories seemed to present themselves at the most unhelpful times. Ironically, when she had faced the goddess, all she could feel was anger and betrayal. No fond memories of the beautiful wife, no feeling of love. Only rage and pain so powerful she could barely stand up beneath the weight.

It made her wonder if, perhaps, the Lady of Mercy hadn't even for her husband's body to cool before taking Vivec to her bed. Or, indeed, for her husband to be dead.

She suspected it was more the ring than her mind, though. They started to pop up here and there as soon as Azura had given her Moon-and-Star, his ancient ring. Maybe anyone who wore it would have had the same effect… if they lived through putting the thing on, that was. Part of her debated removing it, but that seemed… wrong. If Azura gives you a ring, you wear the damned thing and be happy about it. Daedric princes aren't happy when their gifts are refused… and when they're angry, it doesn't end well for anyone else.

_I wish I had a bow for this…_

At least she had magic. It wouldn't win her any friends among the locals, but it was better than nothing.

Arriving at the tower, a panicked guard yelled at her to stay away. She could see bodies already on the ground: victims of the dragon's first pass through.

 _I can do this_ , she thought, even as she ran to hide behind a wall, heart slamming against ribs. Taking a deep breath, Almsi ran back out, targeting the dragon with lightning. The guards went with bows at the same time. After a moment it landed, giving them an opportunity to move in with blades. Not enough, though.

It was landing just to taunt them, she decided after the third or fourth pass. They would get a few swings in, it would burn another Nord to a crisp, and start flying again before any real damage was done.

It would never die at this rate. Even she and the housecarl, whose blood gave them a distinct advantage when it came to fire, were showing signs of exhaustion.

The next time it landed, she decided to take a risk. The dragon was bending low every time it landed, better to aim at the men on the ground. Running straight for the flames, Almsi fought back a cough and jumped.

 _Now what?_  she thought. Sitting on a dragon was well and good, but her weight certainly wouldn't be enough to keep it grounded.

Taking Keening in hand, she started stabbing at the neck of the beast. There was no skill or finesse, just panic.  _Should have planned this better._ If it took off… she'd fall very far, and hit the ground very hard. Almsi didn't relish discovering just what  _that_  would do to her. She might die… but then, she might not. The latter seemed almost worse, all things considered.

It turned out her worries were for nothing. The beast reared with a final cry of agony and, with a roar, tossed her from his neck. For a moment it had sounded like he said  _no._ Before she could consider that, Almsi went flying, landing face down on the frozen ground. The Nords were shouting. With difficulty she pushed herself up, groaning as the light hit her eyes. Walking towards the others, who were clearly celebrating, her hand went up automatically. The beginning motions for a healing spell were interrupted as she reached the dragon, though. Feet frozen to the ground, the air was knocked from her chest.  _"What—"_ she tried to say, but couldn't force the word out. As fast as the air had been pulled from her body, she felt it rushing back in. The world seemed on fire.

Then, without warning, it was over.

Glancing around, it was obvious everyone else had noticed, too. "What happened?" she asked, feeling unsteady.

They were all talking at once. Only Irileth remained silent. Almsi glanced at her helplessly but her expression was unreadable.  _Tiber Septim,_  one said.  _Dragonborn_ , another. The Whiterun guards were staring at her, expressions a mixture of fear and awe.

"Try to shout," one urged her.

"Shout?"

They tried to explain. Something about the dragon language and shouting. She didn't know what anyone was saying. None of it made sense. She felt as though she had walked into a play halfway through the middle act. Everyone knew what was going on but her.

"I don't  _know_  the dragon language," she insisted.

An image flashed in her mind. A wall, deep in the tomb she had explored on her way to Whiterun. Covered in strange scratched markings, it had been only steps from that dragonstone the court wizard was hunting. Something about it had been… irresistibly compelling. She stood staring, for far longer than made sense. That was what she remembered now.

 _No_ , she thought, shaking her head.  _No legends, no secrets, no more._

She could remember the day she had put on Moon and Star for the first time. Almsi hadn't wanted it. She had been terrified to try. Everyone knew Moon and Star had been enchanted to kill anyone that tried to wear it, save Indoril Nerevar himself. No one would ever wear that ring again, not until he was reborn. She could put it on and die, or put it on and live... and Almsi didn't know which was a more frightening prospect.

That same feeling of dread surrounded her now.

Even after, she had run to Tel Vos. Hoping, praying, that Aryon would look at the ring and declare it a forgery. He was an expert in Dwemer art. He would know if it was truly the work of the ancient genius Kagrenac. He would know if the enchantments it carried were really Daedric. He would tell her this was all a mistake.

Aryon found her hiding under the covers of his bed, crying. When she showed him the ring he was silent for a long time before letting out a jagged breath. Meeting her eyes she could see pity on his face.  _Almsi,_  he had said, brushing her hair from her forehead,  _did you really think you could hide from a god?_

He was still right two centuries later.

"Fine!" she yelled. Holding the image of that wall in her mind, the shape of the scratches seemed to transform. They began to shape themselves into a form she could read. Before she had even registered the change, her mouth was opening.  _"Fus!"_

_What does that even **mean**_ **?**

It seemed nonsense, but the nearest guard to her was picking himself up off the ground. The housecarl took that moment to attempt to calm everyone down. "Here is a  _dead dragon_ ," she said, pointing. "Now  _that_  is something real." Before the questioning could begin again Irileth moved closer to Almsi. "Jarl Balgruuf will need to hear about this," she said quietly. Their eyes met briefly, the woman was giving her an excuse to get away.

"I'll run straight there," Almsi said. The housecarl nodded, waving her off.

In her mind, she imagined she could hear Aryon laughing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the wonderful responses to my first chapter. I'm going to try and target biweekly updates, alternating with my Fallout fic. Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.  
> I know I'm playing very fast and loose with the geography of Skyrim, but being able to cross an entire nation in a single afternoon, on foot, seemed a bit much.


	3. Chapter 3

_3E 427_

The boat ride to Morrowind hadn't been easy. She had spent the better part of it hanging over the edge, first emptying the contents of her stomach, and then attempting to empty her stomach itself into the churning water. The only other passenger, another Dunmer prisoner who smelled of illness and had a sheen of sickly sweat over his bare skin, had looked on her with pity. Being pitied by someone who was quite clearly in the midst of skooma withdrawal was perhaps a new low point in her life. But still, he seemed well-meaning enough. When she wasn't actively vomiting, he shared local information. For him, this really  _was_  a return home. The man seemed to have a particular hatred for something called a cliff racer. Almsi made a mental note to avoid them.

They had taken her from the boat first. A Redguard with a kind voice and shining armor greeted her on the dock. "There you are," he said, looking her over. "Welcome to Vvarednfall. I'm sure you'll fit right in." She smiled at the idea. Fit in… now there was a pleasant thought.

"I hope so," she admitted.

It turned out he had either been lying, or had just arrived himself.  _Outlander_. That was what she was called, everywhere. The word was heavy with contempt. It seemed to apply to anyone foreign, regardless of their race, but Almsi had noticed the hatred for her seemed to exceed other races, both Men and Mer.

For the first time in her life, she was surrounded by Dunmer, her own people... and every single one of them seemed to want her gone.

She had been set free and given instructions to find an Imperial man in Balmora. The idea of exploring for some time was tempting, perhaps visiting a few other cities… but being made to feel like an intruder was wearing on her. She hadn't  _asked_  to be born in the Imperial City… and she was here now. Someone would think that ought to count for _something…_ but no.

Seeing no other alternative, and having little luck at finding work beyond getting vague directions to bandit-infested caves, she decided Balmora was better than nothing.

Had Almsi known what to expect, she wouldn't have bothered at all. The emperor had  _a plan_  for her. No, she couldn't be told what it was. Not until she was 'ready,' whatever that meant. Still, the man had given her a fair amount of coin, and only said to go out and learn the lay of the land. "Freelance adventurer is a popular profession," he told her, "go on out and get some experience under your belt."

She had protested. "Look, I don't know what they told you about me, but I'm not some mercenary. I'm a burglar. Or, I  _was_. I can't go out and start… I don't know, fighting bandits."

He crossed his arms. "You've killed three men. One, when he caught you breaking into a shop and started to shout for the guards. Another, when he attempted to double cross you after a robbery you committed together. The third… well, your associates were fairly sure that was self defense." She felt the blood rush from her face, leaving her a hollow, icy shell. "You were arrested with two other people, a Dunmer man and a Bosmer woman. Didn't you wonder why they disappeared from the row of cells so quickly? It didn't take much for them to turn on you in exchange for freedom. So stop pretending you're some innocent flower. We both know the truth. Join the fighter's guild, join the mage's guild… hells, join the thieves' guild if you want. I don't care. Just do  _something_."

She narrowed her eyes, fuming. Suddenly leaving her friends behind in Cyrodil didn't seem so bad. "Fine," Almsi said. "Tell me about the Great Houses." She didn't come all the way to the ancestral home of her people just to join some  _Imperial_  faction. That wouldn't help her start to fit in.

He wasn't pleased with her question. She suspected he wanted to tell her she simply couldn't join a House. They, and the temple, weren't particularly welcome to outsiders, she was warned. If she absolutely  _must_  join one, she should join House Hlaalu, since they were relatively welcoming to outlanders. Redoran less so, although it could be done if the individual was in some way exceptional. Exceptional in ways she was, quite clearly, not. Telvanni, evidently, could barely even stand Dunmer from other houses, much less outlanders. The eccentric mage-lords were best to be avoided completely.

Almsi left, unfolding the map she had been given. Pausing to buy a plain green robe in a local style and some light armor that would fit underneath, she jogged over to the silt strider port on the edge of town. The giant insect was making a sad crying noise. Part of her wondered if that was from the giant hole carved into its back. She squirmed and pushed away the temptation to ask how it could live with such a wound, or if it was in pain. A local wouldn't ask that.

"Can you take me to…" she checked the map once more, praying she wouldn't butcher the word. "Can you take me to Sadrith Mora?"

"No," the caravaner said. "But, I can get you to Vivec, and from there you can catch a ferry to Sadrith Mora. Telvanni don't like outsiders, so they tend to keep to their islands. If you can't levitate or water-walk, you've got to swim or take the boat."

"Fair enough," she said before handing over a few coins and taking a seat on the cushions set out for passengers.

* * *

_4E 200_

Rushing from Whiterun as fast as she could, Almsi hired the first wagon she could see outside town. The whole…  _shouting_  thing had been unsettling enough. The moment she stepped into town it only got worse. From nowhere, a deep booming voice seemed to shake all of Whiterun.  _Dovahkiin_ , it called, stretching the word out. Everyone froze, looking to the skies. That was how she knew it was real- they heard it too. One of the guards had said the same thing after the dragon was dead.

She wanted nothing to do with it.

Shaking her head, Almsi hopped up into a wagon outside Whiterun.  _No,_  she thought.  _No more heroism, no more destiny, not again. Not after the last time._

"Windhelm?" she asked the man.

"Come to Windhelm," the Stormcloak had said, "you don't need to be a Nord to fight for Skyrim's freedom!"

She had no interest in jumping into Skyrim's civil war but… the man had helped save her life. She owed it to him to at least show up and make polite conversation with the Jarl before vanishing. It was, at any rate, a distraction from those 'greybeards" the people of Whiterun kept talking about. That was something she wanted to stay as far from as possible. It had the distinct reek of ' _legendary hero_ ' about it, and Almsi had seen more than enough of that in her life.

So, to Windhelm it was. Truth be told, she hadn't even planned to show up, but it suddenly seemed far more appealing than climbing seven thousand steps to meet a bunch of hermit priests. Knowing what she did about Nords, the seven thousand steps would be exactly that, no more and certainly no less. They weren't prone to poetic exaggeration.

" _Windhelm?"_ The woman at her side broke in. "I thought you had to go to Ivarstead. That's the only way to High Hrothgar."

The Jarl had decided, as thanks for her service, to make Almsi a Thane. Best she could tell, it was a courtier of some sort. Along with that, she was given a housecarl. Because, of course, someone who just earned a place of prominence for killing a dragon was clearly in need of a bodyguard.

Still, the woman assigned to be her housecarl seemed well meaning, and Almsi wasn't sure if turning her away would have been viewed as offensive to local customs, so she brought her along.

Almsi hopped back down. It was already starting to seem like a bad idea. "I will," Almsi told her. "Just… not yet. I have to take care of something in Windhelm first." Pale eyes evaluated her. It was so difficult to read Nords, but Almsi suspected the woman was just confused. "You don't have to come with me. Please don't feel obligated, I won't be offended or complain to the Jarl."

"I'm sworn to your service," she said, pleasantly enough. "Where you go, I follow for as long as you like."

Almsi fought to remember the woman's name. "Lydia," she said, "please don't follow me because you feel like you have to. I know… well, I can't imagine when you decided to be a housecarl you ever pictured someone like me."

"No, I can't say I did," she admitted. "I  _worried_  it would be some bootlicker, who would do nothing but sit in Dragonsreach all day. I  _hoped_  for a warrior." She shrugged. "You are a warrior. You may not be a Nord, but… neither is Irileth, and there are few people in this world I respect more than her." Without any further comment, she climbed into the wagon, offering a hand.

That seemed reasonable enough. As they traveled, they made polite small talk. "You know a Thane is a very important position," she said, almost gushing. "You're practically nobility now!" When Almsi didn't reply right away, Lydia laughed. "Is this where you tell me you're secretly a lost princess of Morrowind?"

"Princess?" she couldn't stop from laughing. "No… not that grand. Not royalty."

She was staring expectantly, clearly waiting to hear just what Almsi had been that made her take being named a Thane so in stride.

She debated what to say. Hortator of the great houses was absolutely out of the question… after all, there had only ever been two. Herself and… well, in a sick way, herself. While she doubted Lydia was an expert in Morrowind history, it still seemed better to keep quiet on that front. Archmagister? No… she had never even  _wanted_  that title. It should have gone to Aryon. He stepped back only because it seemed the most political move. By then, after all, people were already whispering about the Nerevarine. Having the Nerevarine leading House Telvanni would put them in a place of unquestioned superiority over the rival Houses. He knew that. He never told  _her_  that was why, but she realized it eventually. And nearly set him on fire.

"I was on the High Council of Great House Telvanni, years ago," was what she decided on. "Years and years ago."  _That_  was the position she earned. Not the one Aryon shoved her into as his pawn, not the one Azura dumped on her at birth.

Lydia's eyes went wide. "The wizard lords?" Almsi nodded. "Did… did you have one of those mushroom towers?"

"Mine was called Tel Uvirith." She smiled. "It was… well, the tower was lovely. But the location." Almsi laughed. "It was in probably the most miserable area of Vvardenfall. The council was trying to make a push deeper inland, towards the Ashlands region. I had views of rocks, dirt, more rocks, and lava. And I couldn't walk five feet without a cliff racer diving at my head. I didn't spend much time there, I was usually at Tel Vos instead."

Lydia had seemed enthralled, but by now here entire demeanor had changed. "Vvardenfall?" she said. "I… well, I wasn't expecting that."

"Wasn't expecting- good, or wasn't expecting-bad?"

"Neither, really, just surprised. I thought you were the same age as me." She shook her head. "Sorry, I'm being rude. It's easy to forget your people…"

Almsi nodded, quickly changing the subject. She had long since realized age was a topic best avoided unless she was speaking to another Mer. It just made the races of men uncomfortable to remember the difference in their lifespans.

Instead, she asked the housecarl about herself. Lydia was from Falkreath Hold, but moved to Whiterun as a young woman. She came from a family of warriors, but saw more opportunity in Whiterun.  _Jarl Siddgeir is… not like Jarl Balgruuf_ , was all she said. Almsi could only imagine what that meant, and her imagination didn't paint a positive picture of Siddgeir.

It wasn't an especially long trip, but it was still late in the evening when they arrived. Almsi had learned many things about the city along the way, all of which she suspected were exaggerated for tourists. Every once in a while Lydia would catch her eye and shake her head, as if confirming the driver's speech was nonsense.

Seeing the oldest city in Skyrim in all its filthy, ramshackle, crumbling glory was less than impressive. It reminded her slightly of Ebonhart, an Imperial settlement on Vvardenfall… after the volcano. First impressions are often deceptive, but in this case she soon learned it was pretty accurate.

Her welcome to the city had been to stumble into two drunken Nord men threatening a lone Dunmer woman.

"… _you're an Imperial spy!_ " she looked up, following the voices. They were towering over a thin woman, head covered in a hood against the cold. She took a tiny step further away with every word, but they just moved closer.

Moving closer, Almsi could hear the woman arguing, swearing she wanted no part in the civil war. The voice was strangely familiar, or at least, the accent was. She sounded furious, but her hands were shaking slightly.

"Lydia," Almis said, quietly, handing her several coins. "Go to the nearest inn and get us rooms, would you?"

"But—"

"I'm strongly considering breaking a number of laws," Almsi said. "You don't need to go to jail with me. I'll find you in the morning."

"Maybe we'll come see you later," the larger man said, threateningly, leaning over the woman. "We have ways of making spies talk."

"Lydia, I'm your thane, now  _go_."

Almsi didn't wait to see what would be said next, or if Lydia was actually out of the way. Taking the steps two at a time, she slipped between the men and the woman, her dagger in one hand, and a fireball forming in the other. Looking at her, one started to open his mouth. She put her dagger up, point resting against his adam's apple as a response. The other, more sober, of the pair put his hand out, shoving his friend back. Silently, they retreated.

Letting out the breath she had been holding, Almsi turned to the stranger. "Are you all right?"

She nodded, appearing to steel herself as she closed her red eyes briefly. "Yes, I'm fine. But if you're just arriving in Windhelm, well… you're probably better off to keep on walking. The Nords here have no love for our kind." She turned, gesturing to Almsi to follow. As they walked down a series of cramped alleyways, growing both darker and dirtier with each turn, the story grew worse. Suvaris, as the woman introduced herself, talked about the hatred the Nords had for the Dunmer, who were relegated to a ghetto deep in the slums of the city, but also the Argonians and Kahjit, who weren't even allowed past the docks.

Finally, when it seemed they had found the lowest, darkest part of the city, they entered a building.

Dunmer. Dunmer everywhere. All wearing worn, faded, much-mended clothes, all looking exhausted. One man swept, moving the broom over and over across rotting floorboards, as though any degree of work would actually help improve their condition. Another, standing behind the counter, offered her a cheerful greeting. Of course, it was followed by telling her that, had he known then what he knew now, when he came to Windhelm he would have kept right on walking. "Oh, I tried to get the Jarl to come here and see how bad things are. His lord high and mighty couldn't be bothered."

Another man looked over, eyes heavy with exhaustion. "Don't kid yourself. He wants us here, or gone completely. You know he has no love for our kind." He sighed, taking a drink. "Figure he thinks the lower we get shoved, the better the odds are of the earth opening up and swallowing the whole lot of us entirely."

"Do you rent rooms?" she finally asked the bartender, after drinking several glasses of sujamma. She knew she should find Lydia, but the idea of walking through the city, of leaving here and going to some fancy Nord inn made her squirm with guilt.

"No," he said. There was barely a pause before he added, "but I've got a spare bed on the third floor. You're welcome to use it, sister. I won't turn one of my own out to the streets."

She half-expected him to call her an outlander. Walking up the rickety stairs, Almsi realized why he hadn't. They were all outlanders now.

Curled up beneath a pile of furs, she barely noticed the cracked and broken roof that allowed snow to collect in the corners. Face buried in the ancient pillow, she sobbed, remembering the cantons of Vivec City, the towers of Tel Vos, the elegant symmetry of Balmora. The proud, dignified people with their fine clothes and heads high.

_My fault my fault my fault my fault._

Vivec had, for millennia, sat in his temple keeping the Ministry of Truth hovering above the city. When Almsi destroyed the source of Dagoth Ur's power, stopping the blight that had been spreading across Vvardenfall, she took the power of the Tribunal out with it.

The Almsivi were destroyed by an Imperial City thief who bore their name. It was, Almsi thought, the greatest irony. Her name was meaningless to the orphanage staff. It was just something appropriately Dunmeri sounding, likely picked at random from a book or some public record. It wouldn't be appropriate, after all, to call a dark elf girl Agrippina or Urzoga.

Almalexia went mad. Poor Sotha Sil died by the goddess' hand. The worst, though, was Vivec. He lived, he remained sane. But he had no way to keep the Ministry aloft.

When it crashed, it set off earthquakes that caused Red Mountain to breathe liquid fire … and it was all her fault.

And now the once-grand Dunmer civilization was a handful of mainland cities barely clinging to life, and refugees hounded night and day by drunken barbarians.

 _I can fix this_ , she told herself, wiping her face.  _I can make this better. I have to. And if anyone gets in my way, they'll burn._

Almsi wouldn't be meeting with Ulfric Stormcloak. Not yet, at least.

Rolling to her back, she stared at the collapsing ceiling and thought of everything she knew. The  _voice._  That was what the Imperial general had said. Was that… could that be the same as that strange shout she had demonstrated outside Whiterun? It seemed likely… more than  _likely._ The Jarl's brother… he had called it  _the voice._  Those were the words he used to describe what she had done. The same words.

Did that mean  _Ulfric_  was dragonborn? They had called her that. Could there be more than one? Almsi had read the phrase long ago in one of the ancient prophesies of the Nerevarine.  _Dragon-born and far-star marked_ , it said. She had always assumed it was because she had been born under the sign of the Serpent. Poetic license… something like that.  _Snake born_  wasn't particularly romantic, after all. But maybe not.

It looked like she would be going to High Hrothgar after all.

It was a good thing she had managed to make so much off the items from that tomb near Riverwood. She would need new boots if climbing seven thousand steps was in her future.

Almsi was gone before the cornerclub workers were awake. She didn't want to be there when they counted the take from the previous evening.

Lydia had already left the inn when she got there. They bumped into each other several blocks away. "I went looking for you in the Gray Quarter," she admitted, "when I didn't see any reports of murders last night."

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "The man at the… cornerclub? He recognized you. Said to ask if you have any idea what happened to their cash box."

"Nothing, so far as I know," she said quickly.

"I see," was all Lydia said. As they walked she smiled. "He said they were putting a new roof on with the money someone snuck in there."

Almsi smiled to hear that, feeling lighter as they walked out of town.  _You can't buy off guilt,_  part of her said. She pushed it away, though. It was  _something,_  at least.

"How close can you get me to Ivarstead?" she asked a coach outside the city. It wasn't  _very_  close, but it was closer than they were now. Lydia looked pleased as they climbed in and took seats.

"I understand why you had to do this," she said. "I didn't realize how many Dunmer there were living here."

"It wasn't—"

Lydia cut her off as she tried to explain. "It's all right," she said. "I think I know how you feel. A little, at least." Almsi must have looked as confused as she felt. "You've seen my home town," Lydia said. "Or, what's left of it."

It took only a moment for her to understand. Lydia had said she was from Falkreath. Almsi had only seen one town in Falkreath. "Helgen," she said, almost whispering it.

"Helgen," Lydia agreed. "My mother and father, my brother, my sisters, my nieces and nephews, my aunts, uncles, cousins… they all lived in Helgen. They all..," She looked away, out at the road, as her voice broke. "When I heard that a survivor of Helgen had killed the dragon outside Whiterun, I just  _knew_  the Jarl would name them a Thane. I stopped crying, raced over to the throne room and asked to be their Housecarl. Since if that person could kill one dragon, they could kill another. And if I was there to help them…"

"Then you would have your revenge," Almsi finished

"Exactly."

"I understand."

"I thought you would."

 


	4. Chapter 4

"Did you fight in the war?"

"The war?" Almsi made a face as the wagon hit a hole in the road, shifting so she wouldn't tumble off the bench.

"With the Dominion," Lydia said. "But I suppose that answers my question."

"Ah. No… I didn't fight in the war. To be honest, I didn't even know there had been a war until about a week ago." Seeing the shock on the woman's face Almsi shrugged. "I've been… pretty far away, for a long time. After Red Year I just had to get away. I've been in Akavir ever since. Signed on as a mercenary." She tossed a couple mushrooms in her mouth. Almsi reached over, offering the bag to Lydia, who shook her head, a brief look of disgust crossing her features. She wasn't offended. Nords seemed to prefer much sweeter food; it meant more mushrooms for her. "Actually, I've been trying to get the fuck away from Akavir ever since. If you ever have the opportunity to go… don't. And stab whoever invited you. Horrible place. I finally found an expedition leaving. The boat was heading to Black Marsh and then through Topal Sea to dock in Leyawin. I figured Black Marsh would be nothing but trouble for me, so I got off in Cyrodil. Cut north, crossed the border at Pale Pass in the Jeralls… and here I am."

"You were coming to Skyrim?"

"No," she said. "I was arrested by the Imperials for crossing the border illegally, but I was only cutting through. Which is all very funny since last I checked I'm a citizen same as them. And I'm pretty sure I don't look like a Stormcloak."

"I can't see many making that assumption, no," Lydia agreed. "Strange they arrested you. But then, Morrowind isn't technically part of the Empire any longer."

"I was born in Cyrodiil," Amisi said. "Imperial City. Not that I can prove it or anything… but they didn't even ask."

'I've never been to the Imperial City," Lydia said. Almsi wasn't surprised. Lydia didn't seem particularly well traveled. She had never been to the capital of her own nation until that day. "Is the White-Gold Tower as beautiful as they say?"

"I remember it being very tall," Almsi said, "and  _very_  heavily guarded. Mostly against people like me, I'd assume. I never got too close. I left when I was a young woman. I don't have any family, so I haven't been back since. I've always considered Morrowind my home."

Sometimes her memories of those years were hazy. It felt more like a dream than her own reality whenever she looked back. It wasn't the time making her memories fade, though. Of that, she was sure. There were just  _too many_  of them for one mind to sort out.

She could, with effort, remember her childhood. The orphanage, the priests and priestesses, the other girls. She could remember the first hungry night spent huddled behind a closed shop in the Market District, part of her terrified she'd be arrested for vagrancy, part of her hoping she would since that would at least be a meal and escape from the rain. She could remember the man who taught her how to pick locks. He was a Dunmer, far older than herself. She had halfheartedly propositioned him, not wanting to go through with it, but feeling more hungry than proud.  _If you're a whore, I'm Uriel fucking Septim_ , he said, laughing in her face. Bursting into hysterical tears wasn't the most mature response, but it was enough to make him take pity on her.  _Ever hear the saying about teaching a man to fish,_  he had said, as she peered into a lock later that night, thin picks threatening to break under the pressure of her attempts to find the pegs.  _Think of this as the same thing. Only we're fishing for coin. Coin's much nicer._

She could remember all those things. But she could also remember a battlefield, large golden hands gripping a sword with practiced ease. She could remember shaving the sides of her head with smooth strokes from a dagger, movements so familiar a mirror wasn't necessary. Arguments with across a table, promises demanded. The laugh of a friend, his eyebrows raised as though he knew a secret. Sul leaning over, whispering " _don't trust him._ "

Once she had even answered, without hesitation or thought,  _Resdayn,_ when someone asked where she had been born. The man she had been speaking to, a sailor on the ship to Akavir, only shrugged. "Never heard of it," he said. "Small town?"

It wasn't until hours later that Almsi realized why the word was so familiar. Resdayn was the ancient Chimer name for Morrowind. She hadn't been born there.  _He_  had. She never had a shield brother named Sul… or a shield brother at all. But then, she had.

Neither seemed any more or less real. That was part of the problem. Things had been blurry for years, and getting worse as time went on. Almsi could only be glad she didn't have any strange desire to shave her hair into a mohawk… well, not  _again_ , at any rate. She had done it once, and endured Aryon's mockery. Never again. Even if he wasn't alive to tease her any longer.

Maybe especially because of that.

"Anyways," Almsi said, blinking to clear her thoughts, "I was just cutting through Skyrim to Morrowind. Figured I could get a boat to Port Telvannis. I didn't want to travel through the, um… " She trailed off, not sure how to finish that. "The part with the Argonians?" Almsi made a face. "I'm sorry, that sounds really horrible. I don't mean I was avoiding  _Argonians_. Just… the warzones. The invaded areas. I… shit. You know what I mean, right?" She could only imagine what Lydia thought, given the reputation Dunmer had for prejudice against… well,  _everyone._ Almsi briefly considered telling Lydia she wasn't a bigot but figured that would only dig herself in deeper.

"Can't say I'd want to stroll through there looking like you, either," she said, sounding disturbed by the idea.

Relieved by that, Almsi decided a change of subject would be necessary. "So," she began, "what do you know about these Greybeards? I'm assuming they're all old men. Or old, very unlucky, women."

She laughed at that. "Just men, far as I know. I can't say I know much, but no one really does. They're pretty secretive. They don't accept many people for training. Really, Ulfric Stormcloak is the only one I've even heard of."

"Did they summon him?"

"No," she said, "rumor has it he was going to be a monk, but ended up leaving to fight the Dominion." She shrugged. "They're more a religious order than anything else. They follow Kynareth." She must have made a sour face. "You… don't like Kynareth?"

"I don't  _dislike_  Kynareth," Almsi said, trying to sound neutral when she was really doing all she could to suppress the bile in her throat at the thought of being yanked into some religious crusade, for a religion she didn't follow no less. "I really have no opinions as far as the Nine are concerned. Er… Eight. Whatever it is now." She shrugged. "Sorry, I've been away for a while."

Lydia was staring at her. If forced to guess, Almsi would say her thoughts were somewhere along the lines of s _ave me I'm sitting five feet from a Daedra worshiper._  "I… yeah, of course," she said after an awkward silence. "I forgot, most dark elves worship…" her words trailed off nervously.

"Daedra?" Almsi supplied. She nodded. "Not  _all_  of them. I mean, I'm not out slaughtering people for Mehrunes Dagon or deflowering the innocent for Molag Bal or anything. Pretty sure I've never actually deflowered  _anyone,_ innocent or not, in my life." Lydia relaxed slightly. "Just the… well, I don't know what they call them now. They used to be called The Anticipations, but there's no more Tribuna to anticipate…"

"I read about that," Lydia said. "The book said a great hero killed them all."

Almsi made a squeaking noise, cutting her words off before they could form. "She only killed one," was what she eventually said. She had come very close to saying  _I did not_. "Anyways, just the three. Azura, Mephala and Boethiah. Mostly Azura. She… well, I guess I owe my existence to Azura. In a much more literal sense than I like."

"There is a very large shrine to Azura in Skyrim," Lydia said. "People say it's quite beautiful."

"I think I'd like to see that," she admitted. Maybe it was time to try and get back on the right side of the gods. Running from them hadn't seemed to make her life any better, after all.

* * *

She hadn't been in Morrowind long before she learned something about the Dunmer… it was already getting difficult to think of them as her people, despite how much she wanted that to be true. They all went so far out of their way to tell her she wasn't one of them, after all, that it was close to impossible not to believe it herself.

Dunmer, as a general rule, disliked  _everyone_ to varying degrees. At best, you would be offered civility.

Knowing that, she couldn't help but be confused upon her arrival in Vos. All she had to do was ask for directions to Tel Vos, the local mage-lord's tower, for people to stop in their tracks. Everyone had a comment. Master Aryon protects us from the Ashlanders, Master Aryon grew us our fine new tradehouse and dock. Look at Master Aryon's tower, you can tell he's not afraid to try new things.

They practically worshiped the man. Although he was also described, by more than one person, as "a very strange wizard." She didn't know if that meant he was strange for a wizard, or if he was strange for a person and happened to be a wizard.

Either way, though… who  _wouldn't_  be curious?

It wasn't too difficult, after dropping off the potions she had been asked to deliver, to find the entrance to his tower.  _This ring has already paid for itself_ , she thought levitating over to the platform, heart pounding all the while. She hated levitation, but more than one person had warned her Telvanni architecture was all made with levitation in mind. It was their way of weeding out people beneath them, she supposed. If you didn't have the willpower or intelligence to levitate… they didn't want to talk to you.

She had the willpower, Almsi was fairly sure of that. If a Mer of any race  _couldn't_  summon enough willpower to cast a levitation spell they would be an oddity of nature. She liked to  _imagine_  she had the intelligence. The ring was almost two hundred Septims less than buying the spell, though. That was enough money to keep a roof over her head for weeks.

And levitation, truth be told, scared her more than a little. A ring was trustworthy. A ring would always work. Spells… they were less consistent. When failure meant a quick fall and a painful end, she liked  _consistent._

A large Imperial man, heavily armored, stopped her as she entered the main tower. She expected to be turned away, but he just seemed to want to make conversation. "Do you know anything about Ashlanders?" he said after exchanging pleasantries. It didn't take long for her to realize he was distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of visiting the notoriously unwelcoming tribals, and wanted to find someone else to do it.  _Why did I agree?_  she thought, walking up the stairs. Somehow, the head of Master Aryon's mercenaries had convinced her to go within seconds of greeting him. She knew  _nothing_  of Ashlanders. But… she suspected it was the sort of ambition a Telvanni master would respect.

"So  _you're_  the troublemaker?" A man was bent over a book, busily scratching away notes on a separate stack of paper. He had glanced up, briefly, when she entered, before returning his attention to his work. "Surprising."

"I—" she had no idea what to expect, but being  _recognized_  was as far from her list as possible.

"Everyone I talk to has some story about this foreigner clawing her way up the Telvanni ranks," he said, still writing. "Hm… there." The final words were under his breath, said as he finished whatever he had been scrawling and set the pen aside. Almsi glanced over and found herself completely unable to read a word of the book, or of his notes. "Funny," he said, looking at her carefully. "You don't look particularly foreign to me."

"I grew up in the Imperial City," she said, stumbling over her words. She had met very few master wizards. The ones she had seen were all very crazy, very old, very cranky, or some combination of those traits. He appeared to be none of those things. His hair was still pure black and, other than the dotted scars above his brow, which seemed to be something of significance here, his skin was smooth. He also wasn't surrounded with rotten eggs, screaming incoherently at confused slaves, or mumbling to himself. He even wore a few earrings in one ear, some kind of acknowledgement that he realized fashion actually existed.

"Ah." He nodded. "But, you're still Dunmer. What are you now? Lawman?"

"Oathman," she said. She had been promoted just before leaving Sadrith Mora. Not as high as he had thought, though.

He nodded, as if that proved a point. "It will be Lawman soon enough. I would be surprised if someone went beyond  _retainer_  if they were anything but Dunmer. It may not be fair… but it's true." She was staring. She knew she shouldn't stare. She knew it was rude… or, at the very least, slightly creepy.

He was apparently too polite to call attention to her behavior, or too oblivious to notice. She forced herself to speak. "Is there anything you need me to do?"

"Not  _yet_ ," Master Aryon finally told her after some consideration. "Although I might have some things for you to do later. I'm pleased with all you've managed to accomplish so far… and I often find myself in need of a troublemaker. Especially one with such curious allies."  _Mischievous_ , that was the expression he wore. The skin around his eyes was crinkled slightly with amusement as he spoke. Whatever he had in mind, it seemed clear Master Aryon thought he was outsmarting  _someone_.

"I have allies?" she blurted out, immediately feeling stupid. He smiled at that.  _Now that isn't fair at all_ , she thought. He had  _dimples._  Very unfair. _  
_

"Baladas Demnevanni seems to be something of a fan," he said. "He was telling me something about rare books in his last letter. He had been looking for them for, oh, a century or so now. You found them in a week."

"Two weeks."

"Still, rather impressive. And Fyr? Fyr was my patron many years ago. Believe me, he isn't an easy man to impress. But… I sent one of my men with a letter to him not long ago. The reply said he preferred the old messenger." He shrugged as though an idea had only now occurred to him. "But then, Fyr has been something of a dirty old man for longer than I've been alive, and you are..." he paused, looking as though he had regretted speaking. She felt her face heat up, and he glanced away, speaking quickly to fill the silence. "Regardless, neither of them are beloved by the other members of the council. But I happen to respect them both a great deal."

"Oh." She didn't know how to reply to that.

"I'm sorry," he said, smiling again. "I'm certain you have better things to do than listen to me. Go see Galos Mathendis in Sadrith Mora. He'll have some work for you right now. I've got an idea in mind… when the time is right he'll send you back here."

* * *

They arrived shortly before dusk. The coach let them off in a nearby town, not far from the base of the mountain where the Greybeards lived. Almsi glanced up at the peak. "Wow," she mumbled. It was easily three times the size of Red Mountain. Maybe more.

"Yeah," Lydia agreed. "It really is amazing."

"I'd been hoping the whole  _seven thousand steps_  thing was... poetic license."

Her companion burst into laughter. "You haven't spent much time around Nords, have you?" Lydia asked. "We should find an inn. I'm not about to start that climb in the dark." Almsi followed her through the village streets. " _Poetic license,"_  she could hear the woman mutter to herself, still laughing.


	5. Chapter 5

_Ivarstead. 4E_

The day started out pleasantly. She and Lydia shared a breakfast of sweetrolls and some kind of sticky candy made with nuts before setting out. Almsi had asked if they had eggs, but wasn't surprised to find the answer to be no. "Dunmer always ask for eggs," the woman delivering their food mused.

Probably because eggs were what  _normal_  people ate for breakfast, instead of six pounds of sugar. But she just shrugged and laughed, pretending it was reasonable to drown yourself in honey immediately after waking up. Her teeth hurt.

"Well, you're the local," she said to Lydia, looking up at the mountain. "Thoughts?"

"It's going to be cold," she said, pointing out something even Almsi had figured out on her own. "Especially near the top. Wolves will be our biggest problem if we're lucky."

Almsi raised her eyebrows at that and looked over. "And if we're not lucky?"

"Frost trolls, maybe. Ice wraiths. Something like that."

" _That_  I can handle," she said. "Ice beasts are always susceptible to fire spells, and I doubt there's a Dunmer alive who can't manage fire spells. But... we're not as good with the cold. I knew I should have skinned the last wolves that bit me," Almsi said, starting the climb. "A nice fur cloak would come in handy right now."

"You can skin a wolf?"

She shrugged. "How hard could it be? I'm good with a knife. Probably no worse than skinning a scamp. Or cutting out a daedra heart." Almsi laughed at the face Lydia made. "What? Daedra hearts are fantastic. Fairly powerful. Especially for healing potions and summoning. And the best part is, they're worth a  _fortune_ , since you can't exactly pick them from trees." She started laughing. "Years ago, when I was just starting out in Vvardenfall, a member of the Telvanni council sent me to deliver something to this crazy old hermit he knew. The guy had  _summoned_   _daedra_  to guard his house. So, they attack me and I kill them."

"I take it he didn't want visitors?"

"I figured that, but he was perfectly pleasant once I got upstairs. Well, perfectly pleasant for a Telvanni wizard. So... he didn't try to kill me or anything." She shrugged. "I think he was just bored and liked summoning things. He ended up telling the council member who sent me that  _I_  was completely out of my mind, though."

"Daedra hearts?"

"Hey, I was broke," Almsi said. "So, I stomped down on their chests to snap the ribs, sliced them open, and cut out the hearts. Got over a hundred septims each."

Lydia looked like she wanted to laugh. "I have to say… I'm not exactly  _surprised_  he told people you were nuts after doing that."

"Me neither. I  _am_  surprised the council member who sent me later decided I was his absolute best choice for a new protégé." Lydia did start laughing then. "Especially since I broke into Baladas Demnevanni's house _at least_  three more times just to take more hearts. But... it's not like I'm  _really_  killing anyone. Someone told me they just end up getting reborn over and over when their bodies die." She paused, realizing something about that. "Of course, the person who told me also claimed to be Sheogorath. And I'm pretty sure He's not an angry Bosmer woman. Probably."

Amusing daedra worshipers were far less disturbing than quiet ones, as Almsi had guessed. Lydia laughed, relaxed, and they continued onward.

* * *

_Tel Vos, 3E_

"Might I ask you something?"

"I suppose you might," she replied. "I can't predict the future. But I think it would be a bit strange if you never asked me a question again. I do work for you."

Aryon laughed. "I'm quite serious," he said. "I was wondering something."

"Oh?"

"Why House Telvanni? I have a theory. I'd like to see if I'm correct."

"A theory, hmmm?" Almsi leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin rested on her hands. "I'm flattered. I didn't think I was  _nearly_  interesting enough to have you sitting around crafting theories. What is it?" Her tone was playful, but he could tell she was sincere… at least in her curiosity.

His elbow was on the arm rest of his chair. His book on the table threatened to close and the magister flipped it upside down, securing his place. "I need something to think about while I'm wasting time in the bath," he said with a shrug. Did she just blush? "I won't tell you. Not until I get the truth. I don't want my theory to influence your answer."

"Why Telvanni?"

"Yes," he said. "Hlaalu is the most welcoming. It would be the natural choice for anyone looking to integrate themselves into Morrowind society. You're also in somewhat good standing with the Temple… Redoran would have gladly accepted you on those grounds alone. And frankly…" he paused, and she raised an eyebrow. Against his better judgment, Aryon continued on. "Frankly, you aren't much of a  _wizard_ , in the traditional sense. More… a nightblade. Perhaps even a spellsword. You use magic as a tool, like a sword or lockpick. You certainly haven't dedicated your life to the arcane arts." He seemed to wait for her argument. She didn't have one. Instead she nodded, looking slightly embarrassed "Almsi, you can't even  _levitate_  without that ring. Speaking of- learn to levitate if you ever want to advance. You can consider that your next assignment. Don't think you'll fool me, I know you didn't last time."

"Yes, serjo," she said, blushing. Almsi clearly hadn't realized he knew about her levitation ring. He suspected she wore it on a toe, since her hands were free of ornament. He had noticed one afternoon when she arrived, though. The magic felt… different.

He laughed then. No matter what, Aryon couldn't get used to people addressing him like that. "If you call me that again I'm replacing you with… I don't know, an orc. Or maybe just a well trained nix hound."

"A nix hound wouldn't be able to stay still on a platform in the council hall all day and put up with Gothern's Mouth doing verbal backflips to avoid actually saying anything of meaning," she pointed out.

"Then a guar. Regardless, I don't want to hear that from you again." He smiled. "You're a retainer of House Telvanni, try and act like it. And besides, it makes me feel so  _old_."

"You  _are_  old." Almsi smiled at him, poking his arm, and Aryon suddenly realized she was flirting. Part of him suspected he should discourage her but… well, while he wasn't old by Telvanni standards, he was at least five times her age. It was rather flattering.

"Nonsense. I'm the youngest person on the council by… oh… at least three hundred years. Maybe more."

"You know… considering at least one person on the council was born  _Chimer_ and two others were probably part of the first generation of actual Dunmer, that really isn't saying a lot." She was laughing as he tried to feign outrage, badly.

"You talk too much."

"Isn't that my job?" Aryon did laugh then, raising his glass to her. After a long drink she giggled again. They had been working their way through a bottle of greef… which had somehow turned into two bottles. "Anyways. I guess part of the reason is because House Telvanni is sort of known for hating outlanders. I figured…" she shrugged, tucking hair behind her ear. "This will sound stupid. But I guess I figured if the house that hates outlanders more than anyone else would take me in… then, I don't know, maybe it would prove I belonged here" She looked embarrassed.

He sighed, inwardly cursing the shortsightedness of his people. Outlanders were disliked, but the strongest hate seemed to fall on those of Dunmer blood. Most Dunmer were enraged at the thought of their own kind with foreign accents and unfamiliar ways. They were seen as corrupted by inferior societies… as though a child would have any control over where they had been born. Personally, Aryon had long thought a great deal of credit should be given to any Dunmer who made a conscious decision to leave all they knew and move to their ancestral homeland. It certainly required more effort than just being born here. Anyone willing to endure so much difficulty just to live among their own people should have been welcomed with open arms, like a long-lost cousin.

Ideas like that were likely the reason most of the other councilors treated him as a joke.

"I assume joining the temple had similar motivations?"

"I guess," she said with a shrug. "I mean, don't get me wrong. It wasn't as though I had it on a checklist of ' _how to be a real Dunmer_ ' or anything."

He rolled his eyes. "You  _are_  a real Dunmer, Almsi."

She smiled at him, a genuine smile… not the slightly crooked drunken grin she had been wearing until then. He had never noticed the gap between her top front teeth. It was an interesting, and not unpleasant, contrast to the haughty oval face and pointed chin. He suspected her blood was actually of House Indoril, they all seemed to look cold and angry, like Ordinator's masks come to life. She seemed to fare better than most of them, at least. He very rarely expected her to start calling people  _scum._ "You may be the only person on Vvardenfall who thinks so."

"My opinion is the only one that matters."

"Of course it is," she said. "Thanks to you I've got tons of pretty clothes and dangerous weapons. My own family wasn't so generous." She paused. "You know, I was trying to make a joke, and that just came out sounding… kind of pathetic, really. Sorry about that."

"You can't help it," he said. "Everyone knows the Dunmeri are utterly humorless. Since birth you've been predisposed to making uncomfortable attempts at jokes that only highlight the futility and cruelty of life. See, you really  _are_  one of us." She started laughing at that. "It may get better in time. Give it a couple hundred years. Personally, I find Neloth  _hilarious_. Although I am fairly sure it is unintentional on his part."

Almsi laughed hard enough at that to snort, and smacked her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with embarrassment. "Probably," she agreed after taking a moment to regain her composure. She grabbed the bottle, moving to refill her glass. It was empty.

"Oh," Aryon got up, slowly walking to a shelf across the room. "I have more." He looked around. "Wait, no. No I don't. I have… this?" He picked up an unfamiliar bottle. "Oh! Mazte. I have mazte." He looked over his shoulder at her. "By Azura's light, why in the world were we drinking  _greef_ when I have perfectly good mazte here?"

"I figured you were slumming with the help," she said, shrugging. In reality, Aryon had been enjoying a drink while doing some reading when she arrived with news from the last council session. Realizing he hadn't actually said more than two words to  _anyone_ since she had left over a week ago, he offered her a glass and they continued talking long after her report had been made.

He rolled his eyes, dropping into a chair on her side of the table so he could refill both of their drinks. "Do you even bother researching anything before you act?"

"Not really?"

Aryon groaned. "You ought to start," he said. "The  _help_? What do you think, you're on par with some dishwasher or hired thug? You're a member of House Telvanni, and fairly high ranking one at that. You're Morrowind nobility!" He shook his head.

"I am?" she looked dumbfounded.

"You are."

There was a long silence. Aryon could see her struggle to piece it together. "Well then," she finally said. "Why the fuck are we drinking  _greef_? Come on now, make with the good stuff!" She slammed back the glass as soon as he filled it. "So much better. Definitely." He couldn't help but laugh. "So you know why I joined. What was your theory?"

He shrugged. "It was basically correct. I figured… something to do with not wanting to be seen as an outlander. The… well, the sad attempts you made at hiding your accent were a pretty strong sign." She giggled and he added "I'm particularly glad you stopped doing that. There's nothing wrong with how you speak normally, but I could barely keep a straight face through that fake Mournhold accent."

"Yeah, I guess I'll always sound like an Imperial City street rat," she said with a sigh. "Could be worse. I could have a Skyrim accent or something. That would be confusing." She had her legs tucked up onto the chair, which had an effect of shifting her entire body towards him. Aryon could actually smell a hint of the perfume she had been wearing that day; something spicy, probably expensive, and most definitely local. Almsi had a tendency to dress up whenever going to the council chambers, and for as long as he had known her, that meant exclusively Morrowind fashions. It wasn't necessary, but he suspected it made her feel less intimidated by the others. "Oh!" Jumping, she nearly spilled her glass as she shifted sideways on the chair to face him. "Oh! I almost forgot. This is so great!"

"What?"

"That Redoran thing? It's all set."

That  _was_  a surprise, and a very good one. He had expected her negotiations to stretch on for weeks. Convincing them to side with Telvanni and break the monopoly of the Imperial mages' guild was... well, near-impossible. They had nothing to gain, after all. "You managed to get three to agree?"

" _Five!"_

He blinked, unsure if what he heard was correct. "You said five?"

"Yep."

" _How?_ "

"I appealed to their national pride, and to their sense of fairness and justice," she said. "Also, I bribed them."

"Bribery!" He was shocked. Aryon always thought Almsi was fairly… conservative when it came to bending the law. He suspected the change was his influence.

"Damn straight," she said with a nod. "Don't worry, wasn't my money. Or yours." She leaned closer, giggling and resting a hand briefly on his forearm. "This is so great. You'll enjoy this." He waited for her to go on. The entire thing was incredibly entertaining. Only an outlander would be so… enthusiastic about bribery. "See, back in the Imperial City, well… I was kind of… not the best person. I didn't have any family and grew up in an orphanage, and when we turned seventeen it was out the door."

He had long pieced together that she grew up surrounded by poverty. She had made offhand comments which caused him to believe her parents might have died at a young age. But to actually be abandoned? Aryon bit his tongue, knowing his opinion would likely only be offensive. Children in Morrowind were extremely rare and almost certainly treasured… not left alone to be reared by strangers with strange customs.

"So, I've got no home, no job, no family. And I'm a Dunmer, so I can't even  _get_  a job because everyone thinks I'll rob or kill them. Or screw their husbands." She made a face. "Thanks to  _The Real Barenziah._ Seriously. Like the whole of Tamriel needed to start thinking all Dunmer women are tramps. I don't need that." Just as Aryon decided he wouldn't offer her any more to drink, she grabbed the bottle, refilling her own glass. "Probably not even true. I bet Queen Barenziah is a perfectly respectable lady."

"Who had a bastard with a bard."

"You have a point," she said, nodding. "It was wrong for her to cheat on her husband. But I don't see the problem with bards. Or bastards, in general. Maybe I'm a bastard. For all I know I'm the bastard of a bard. Or two bards." She smirked as if defying him to challenge her. "For all you know, my mother was a  _whore_." She giggled at his expression of mock-outrage. "I just meant the stuff in the book about the emperor. A married man and all." She did look disapproving, in the way that only someone young enough to see the world as black and white could. "And her poor husband, too. He always sounded like such a nice man. I saw a picture of him once. He looked nice."

 _I must be even less popular than I thought,_  Aryon realized, listening to her. The  _only_  way this innocent girl possibly continued to survive was because no one had enough interest in being his protégée to assassinate her. Lucky for her, less so for him.

"Anyways. What was it?" She looked lost for a moment and took another drink. "Right! Crime! So, I started robbing people. If they were going to assume I was a thief anyways... might as well." He stared at her, surprised. "I just went back to my old skills." She was speaking casually, apparently oblivious to his surprise. "Dressed up as a boy, robbed those Redoran bastards blind, hopped the slit strider to Balmora and sold everything deep in Hlaalu territory. Then I went back a week later in my fancy robes and silver staff like a proper Telvanni, and used that money to pay them off. I cast a recall spell and was back here before anyone was the wiser."

He stared at her for a moment. While he assumed the outlander's background was… colorful, that apparently wasn't even the tip of it. "Well then," he finally said, "I have to admit… I'm impressed. You stole without being caught, so clearly your claim was in the right, and you found that even the high Redoran have their price. Well done."

"Really?" she said, beaming. "You're happy? You don't  _look_  happy."

"I'm thrilled, just… surprised. It's… it seems unlike you."

"You don't know me very well," she said, words slurring. He couldn't disagree. "You think I'm some nice girl from Cyrodil. You know I came here on a prison ship, right? Master Aryon, If I was half as naive as you think I am, I'd be dead a dozen times over."

He made a face, cutting her off. "Please, just Aryon. Whenever I hear someone say  _Master Aryon_  I think I should be looking around for my grandfather."

She beamed and he found himself returning the expression. "All right…  _Aryon_." She giggled and he found himself feeling uncomfortable. "Did you know someone sent the damned Morag Tong after me?"

"What?!" He sat up with a start. Murder was common in House Telvanni, but they took care of their own problems. To actually go outside and hire the Morag Tong was… well, it wasn't cheap. And it meant someone was very anxious to see her gone,  _and_  afraid to do it themselves.

"I know!" She shook her head. "I'm guessing someone wants me out of the way so they can take my job. They didn't say but… what else could it be? I really hope they give up soon, it's getting annoying."

"Getting  _annoying_?" He had never even heard of anyone even  _surviving_  an attack by the assassins.

"You do realize I'm not much better than homeless, right? I live in an eight foot square room in the central tower. No storage space." Almsi smiled sweetly. "Know anyone who can use half a dozen sets of Morag Tong armor? Slightly burnt, with a few tears. I stashed them down near the base of the tower."

"You killed  _six_ of the Morag Tong? Well done!" he said without hesitation. "I assure you, I couldn't be any more happy. In fact, I'm so pleased I'm promoting you. Good job, spellwright." For a brief moment he thought she was about to hug him. When he realized he was disappointed she didn't, Aryon pushed his glass away.  _You're her patron, and five times her age,_  he reminded himself.

"Thank you," was what she said instead, words slurred.

"People questioned me, but I keep finding more reasons to be glad I made you my protégé."

"People questioned you?"

"You're not even  _fifty_ yet, which makes you the youngest Mouth by more than a century. You weren't born Televanni. You weren't even born in  _Morrowind._ I think it's fair to say people were questioning my judgment. Moreso than usual."

 _Maybe_ ** _I_** _should stop drinking,_  Aryon thought, watching her face fall.

"So… why?"

"You rose higher in House Telvanni in  _months_  than most people do in a lifetime. You realize there are countless members who never even rise above Oathman? Gods, I'd say the vast majority of people stop at Retainer. Ambition is a virtue, and you clearly have far more ambition than most." He sipped his drink, briefly wondering how it ended up back in his hand. "Frankly, I didn't much care if it was through hard work or conniving. I could find use for either trait quite easily. I had other reasons, but truth be told, that's what caught my attention. I was curious as soon as I started hearing about the Outlander waltzing through any task thrown at her."

"What else?"

He shrugged. "Little things. You seemed a pleasant enough individual, which is of some importance since I knew I would end up spending more time with you than most people. I didn't get any indication you were working for one of my enemies or planning to kill me." Aryon shrugged, figuring the truth wouldn't hurt. "And you asked me. Before anyone else." He felt embarrassed. She was well aware of the way the traditionalist hardliners and the lunatics were banding together against him, but speaking of it wasn't a pleasant thing. "Everyone wanted to know who you would ask. I'm very rarely anyone's first choice as patron. But I was yours."

"Of course you were."

"Why?"

"Honestly?" Almsi shrugged. "I was impressed with you before I even met you. I think every person in Vos adores you. I asked how to find your tower and had people running from inside buildings to tell me about all the wonderful things you've done for them. I'd never seen anything like it. Not here, or even in the cities run by other houses. I thought 'this guy has to be something special.'"

Aryon felt his face heating up. "I wasn't aware of that."

She nodded. "You should spend more time in Vos, you'd have so many people buying you drinks you'd probably levitate and land on the roof when you tried to come home."

"I wouldn't want them to buy me drinks. This isn't Sadrith Mora. The people of Vos aren't well off."

"See," she said. "That's just what I mean. It honestly never even occurred to me to ask anyone else." Almsi sipped her drink, looking thoughtful. "No, that isn't entirely true. I debated between asking you and asking Baladas Demnevanni for a moment. But you never expected me to kill my way through dremora just to get to the second floor."

He laughed. "So I won because my bodyguard is an Imperial and not a summoned creature?"

"Nah," she said. "You won because, given the choice, I'd rather spend time with you." She didn't elaborate on that statement. He was almost certain she winked, but Almsi stood up so quickly he wasn't actually positive. "I should head out," she said. "I didn't realize how late it was."

Promising to stop by before she headed to Vivec the next day, Almsi turned and headed down the stairs.

* * *

_So... I might have saved over chapter 5 with a draft of chapter 4. Or messed up the file names. Either way, oops. Sorry for the confusion and the delay, I had to rewrite the whole thing, and life has been pretty hectic lately. Thanks for reading and reviewing. Sorry again for the screw up._


	6. Chapter 6

_High Hrothgar, 4E_

Lydia woke with a start, looking around. She had been dreaming of her father's home, one of those dreams that were so vivid seeing something different when your eyes opened left you confused and disoriented. Sitting up, reality came back to her once again and the ache returned to her chest. High Hrothgar.

The last week seemed unreal. She knew other people in town had doubts about the strange newcomer, saying she couldn't possibly be dragonborn. It was preposterous, a _dunmer_ of all things. Lydia had believed it, though. She had friends among the guards who fought the dragon that day, good friends. Steady men and women, not the sort who would be prone to fanciful stories. They told her of the way the group had brought the dragon down, with the archers and her now-Thane's spells doing the bulk of the work. They described how she had passed by the body, only to freeze, head thrown back and mouth open as if to scream. Light poured from the dragon and surrounded her, before vanishing- apparently into the Dunmer's body itself. The woman had nearly collapsed after, doubling over in apparent pain. They said she seemed confused afterwards, and afraid. _That_ , more than anything, was what convinced Lydia it was true. Frankly, even if her friends were the sort to invent crazed tavern tales… no one invents a story of some figure from legend being scared witless. It just doesn't happen. If it was fake, the reports would have had her cheering in victory, fist in the air before jumping on the corpse of the dragon and ripping out the heart. Something outlandish and properly heroic would have capped off the tale… not a terrified Dunmer woman with tears in her eyes, looking like she wanted to run away and hide.

Even if she hadn't believed it then, she would have now. Watching someone learn a dragon shout in, literally, minutes, had amazed even the monks. If they were astounded, well, it _had_ to be true.

Glancing over, she saw the Thane's bed was empty. The Greybeards had given them a small room to share, likely one once occupied by members of the order when they were larger. Lydia wondered if Ulfric Stormcloak had slept in this very room. Not that it really mattered, but still... it would be something funny, to say she slept in the same bed as the would-be High King. Her older brother would have laughed himself sick at that, his sister sharing a Jarl's bed. Her father would have been far less amused.

Slipping out from below the blankets, she crept down the hall in her socks, following the sound of voices. _This is wrong_ , she told herself. _You aren't concerned for her, you're just being nosey_. It didn't stop her.

"…you've been given a great gift." That was an old man, Arngeir most likely. He seemed to be the only one who actually spoke.

"Can't I… I don't know, can't I give it back?"

"But why would you want to do such a thing?" he sounded genuinely confused. Lydia couldn't blame him.

There was a wet sound… she suspected the Thane was crying, and felt even more guilty for eavesdropping. "I've been here before," she said. "Gifts from gods end badly. I don't want to be a hero."

"You can't _know_ what this means. None of us do."

"I don't believe in coincidence," she said flatly. "There are dragons, for the first time in… well, longer than my people have even _existed_. There has to be a connection." She sniffed again, Lydia was sure she was crying. "I just can't do this again."

There was a long silence, broken only by a slight sniffling sound. "No mortal man can change the will of Akatosh, my child. I wish I could tell you otherwise…"

"Yeah," she said after a long pause, sounding more collected. "Well… hopefully it'll go better this time."

Lydia had no idea what she was talking about. Neither did Arngeir. "What do you mean?" he asked her.

"It's a long story," she said. "Long, and old. It doesn't matter anymore."

Lydia crept back to bed not long after. The monk telling Almsi she had no way of knowing what the gods expected her to do with this gift was something she found amusing. The thane's reaction was the only thing that made sense; the return of dragons and the return of a dragonborn at the same point in time was a bit bigger than a random coincidence.

The dunmer woman returned not long after Lydia was in bed. She was full of questions, but didn't want to admit to spying. It probably wasn't the best time to ask, anyways. Not when she crawled straight into the bed, not bothering to remove her shoes, and pulled the blankets up to hide her face. That night she thrashed in her sleep. At one point Lydia was certain she heard the woman say a name.

No, this wasn't the right time to ask. Not at all.

* * *

_Tel Vos, 3E_

Aryon was halfway to his bedroom when he heard a high scream. his bodyguard had long since retired for the night. There were evening guards, but they were all outside. Spinning back, he took the stairs up to his main chamber two at a time, and then back down to the entryway. Opening the door, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"Help?" The voice was strained, but very familiar.

"Almsi?" he asked, looking down. All he could see were eight blue-grey fingers clinging to the edge of the balcony.

"So… I hate to impose, but if you could pull me up before I, ummm… fall and die…"

He glanced over the edge. "Gods, what happened?" She was looking up at him, eyes wide with fear. Reaching down, Ayron leaned over, grabbing her wrists without waiting for an answer. "You need to let go of the ledge and grab my arms."

"All right," she replied, not moving.

"Almsi," he said, giving her a pointed look.

"I know, I know," she said. She started to remove one hand and reached back, grabbing the ledge again with a whimper of terror. "Honestly, are all ladders secretly Hlaalu or something?"

"Yes, they are," he said. "I'm so sorry you had to find out like this. Now grab my wrists before you pull your arms from the sockets." She glanced down at the ground and made a whimpering noise. "You're fine," he insisted. "If you fall, I'll levitate and catch you. I promise." He tightened his grip, feeling the bones in her slim wrists grind together.

"All right," she said, almost too quiet for him to hear.

She let go and dropped several inches as her full weight fell to Aryon. "It's all right!" he said. He could hear someone in the distance shouting. Oh, that's lovely, he thought. Vos gets to watch me save my drunken protégée from falling to her death, because she's the one Telvanni that can't levitate.

"Didn't I tell you to learn to levitate?" he grumbled, trying to pull her back over the edge. She was heavier than he had anticipated. He should have thought to cast a spell to fortify his strength. Sorcerers weren't built for things like this.

"Three hours ago!" she snapped. "Why do you think I was going to Vivec tomorrow? And you know, you could have just taught me yourself! Isn't that part of your job? I take care of your bullshit and kill your enemies, you make me a better wizard. I thought that was the deal here."

"This would be much easier if you stopped kicking."

She went still and Aryon was finally able to yank her up from over the edge, sending himself toppling backwards in the process.

There was a sound of laughing and clapping from below. "Oh gods," Almsi mumbled. "There are a ton of people who were just watching me dangle from the edge, aren't there?"

"I'm afraid so," Aryon said. She had landed on top of him and was holding tightly to his shoulders as thought she was afraid to fall off again.

"Good," she mumbled into his chest. "I'm so glad I'm wearing a skirt. That will make the humiliating stories much more colorful." She was silent for a second. "And I'm pretty much lying on top of you, aren't I?"

"Do you really need an answer to that?"

She scrambled off him to one side, sitting up with her back against the door. He hadn't even realized one of his arms had found its way around her waist until she moved. "I don't think there's any way I could feel more stupid," she said. "Unless I fell off the edge again right now."

"Let's not test that theory," he said, standing up. "I don't get out often; there's only so much excitement I can tolerate in a day." Offering his hand, Aryon pulled her to her feet. "Come back inside." He opened the door and she followed. "What do people drink to calm their nerves where you're from?"

"Sujamma?" she suggested.

"I _highly_ doubt that, and was thinking more along the lines of _tea_ , but, you're the one who was just facing death. If you really think more alcohol is the answer…"

"I do," she said, nodding seriously. "Absolutely. More alcohol is quite clearly the answer. Since I'm warning you, I'm sleeping on your floor tonight. Maybe I can drink enough that I won't be bothered by sleeping on a floor." She leaned against the wall, yanking her shoes off. Holding one of the green slippers, Almsi gave it a shake. A small gold ring tumbled out, which she slammed on the table. "And there."

"I knew it was on your foot," he said without thinking.

"Where else would it have been?" she replied. "You think I wanted anyone to know about that? People talk about me enough as it is." She sighed. "This will go so well with the stories people already tell about me."

Maybe she wasn't as oblivious as he had thought. "What stories?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

"Take a guess," she said, sliding to the floor, knees against her chest. "If it makes you feel better, everyone who tells them seems to assume you're the idealistic and trusting victim of an outlander whore." She laughed. "All the shit, none of the fun, eh?"

Aryon couldn't come up with a reply. Well, no, he could come up with several replies. But every one was wildly inappropriate when he applied them to a woman who was far too young, _extraordinarily_ drunk, and his direct subordinate. He had just saved her life... it was understandable that might make her slightly more affectionate than normal. But in the morning she would be sober, and he would feel like his name was about to be added to Fyr's in the warnings Telvanni fathers typically gave their daughters.

"Ignore me," she said, waving her hand with a laugh, clearly realizing his discomfort.

"I'll be back in a moment," he said, as she sat on the floor, still shaking.

"You didn't have to do that," she said when he returned, arms full of blankets. "Don't go through any more trouble for me. It's my own damn fault."

"Actually," Aryon said, "you're sleeping in my bed tonight." As soon as the words were out he realized how that must have sounded. She raised her eyebrows, the corners of he mouth twitching up slightly. "These are for me, I'm fine staying out here," he added quickly before she could laugh at him. For a moment he was sure she looked disappointed. _You can hardly look down on Neloth using his apprentices in experiments if you end up becoming the sort of man that takes advantage of your own when she's drunk._ At least when Neloth used people, he was advancing the House's magical knowledge.

"Absolutely not," she said, shaking her head as he spread a blanket out and sat on it. "You are a Master of House Telvanni, you aren't sleeping on some _floor_. I'm the drunken idiot who can't levitate. I'll sleep here."

"This isn't a debate," he said, sliding a bottle across the floor. "Here you go. Your sujamma. I highly recommend not drinking it." She took a long drink from the bottle before holding it out to him.

Aryon accepted it with a shrug, drinking far less than she had. Something else suddenly came to mind. "What was that about killing my enemies? What enemies?" He paused. "Well, beyond the rest of my peers." He glanced over at her. "And just so we're clear, if something untimely were to happen to Gothern, I'd be hunting for a new Mouth. Since you would be given seat on the council. And I would personally see to it that your seat was covered in diamonds. In case you were wondering about that, for whatever reason."

She relaxed, laughing. "If things got so bad you realized they were out there I wouldn't be doing my job," she said. "You picked me instead of some academic for a reason. You don't need a wizard. You need a nightblade. A killer." She smiled, taking the bottle back. "Some mealy-mouthed Breton from the Imperial guild was poking around, asking about getting an audience with you. Managed to get a copy of the tower schematics, even."

"Which ones?" he said, laughing as well now that the tension had passed. Tel Vos hadn't turned out _quite_ how he had envisioned. That was no secret. Multiple collapsed rooms destroyed by the tower's roots weren't in his initial plans.

"The originals, so they were useless, but even so, she shouldn't have had them," Almsi said, understanding him. "I did a bit of checking- seemed like she'd been asking about all the Councilors. On personal request of their… whatever they call him. Arch mage? So I broke into her room in Sadrith Mora while she was sleeping and read her journal. Guess why."

"I'd assume to kill off the Council and destabilize the House," he said. "We're their primary opposition, after all."

"And you'd be right. So she won't be sniffing around Tel Vos anymore. Or anywhere else." She looked pleased. "There were a few others, but that one made me happy. It was a lot of work."

She suddenly seemed a much more apt fit for Telvanni than he had realized up until that point. "I didn't exactly consider you a killer before, well… today," he said.

"You also need better informants," she said. "Why do you think I was deported?"

As disturbing as it was to think the Empire was secretly shipping their convicted murderers to Vvardenfall, Aryon put that aside for a moment. He was starting to realize what an untapped resource his Mouth could potentially be to him. It didn't take much prodding from him to get the rest of her story. Every once in a while she would look away or cover her face. He realized he should feel guilty, dragging from her things she had gone to great lengths to leave in the past… but knowing just what the woman was capable of was far more important. Even if his stomach did twist into a knot when she, near tears at one point, begged him not to judge her.

Once she finished, he took a long drink trying to analyze what he had heard. He wouldn't have imagined circumstances where a person could, in all sincerity, thank Azura for leading them to the life of a thief. But, that was likely only because he had never found a reason to consider what options there were for a young Dunmer woman without a home, a trade, or coin. Realizing what else there was…well, he could certainly see how the Thieves Guild would be welcomed with open arms.

"You said the man in Balmora-"

"Caius Cosades," she supplied, voice flat.

"Yes. He gave you money, and told you to return after you established yourself?"

"I never went back," she said. "I don't really care _what_ the Empire wants me to do. The only good thing they ever did for me was get me out of Cyrodiil. I'm _happy_ now, I don't want anything to do with them."

"Forget about going to Vivec tomorrow, this is more important. _I_ want you to go back to this man in Balmora," he said. She looked crushed and he quickly began to explain himself, before Almsi thought she was being banished. "You've been adopted into House Telvanni," he reminded her. "Remember where your loyalty is, and do what I say. Go back, find out as much as you can, and then return to tell me _everything_ as soon as possible. Understand?"

"Of course," she said, smile returning. She was very drunk, but he trusted she would remember.

"If the Empire has some secret plan for Vvardenfall, I want to know what it is. Someone will discover it eventually. If we're first, well, all that can be to our advantage... and the disadvantage of the other houses _and_ the Empire." _And the rest of our House,_ Aryon thought. She would know that already, though, as much as she would know anything to his advantage was to hers. Her fortune was forever linked to his as far as House Telvanni was concerned. "You said this man spends half his time in a Cornerclub?"

"High as cliffracer, yeah," she nodded. "They call him _sugar tooth."_ Her voice was heavy with contempt.

"Meet him first, see what he tells you. But watch his house after, from a distance. Return later, after the man's gone out to his drink and drugs. I trust you can be discrete. See what you can find that he _isn't_ telling you. Imperials live for written records, I'm sure you'll get something. Make copies if you can. Find out, then tell me."

"He'll never know I was there," she said, beaming.

Aryon returned the smile. He was already seeing the advantages to having a professional thief, one with decades of experience in the largest city of Tamriel no less, at his disposal.

* * *

_Whiterun Hold, 4E_

"So… can you explain this again?"

Almsi laughed. She would once have been confused as Lydia, but had come to understood how this game worked. "In order for them to teach me how to use this… _voice_ thing, I have to prove I'm a Dragonborn. So I need to go get a dead person's favorite horn from a cave. And really, even if I don't plan to use it, I should know _how_ at least. I mean, imagine if I stubbed my toe. I could accidentally set something on fire or knock over a wall if I yelled in pain!"

"I thought they already said you were the Dragonborn?"

" _A_ Dragonborn," she corrected. "Not _the. A._ There can be more than one. I asked. They said there might have been tons all along, but no one could tell since, well, no dragons." That made this easier. She decided she could live with being _a_ Dragonborn much more easily knowing it was just something that just happened every once in a while. Like being born blind, or having webbed toes. That was a lot easier to accept than being the _only_ one. It wasn't as though it made any practical difference, but the small distinction helped her cope.

_Jurgen Windcaller ran from my forces to hide himself in a monastery and invent excuses for his failures. I drove these _Nord barbarians from Resdayn, and now I join that selfsame monastery?_  
_

_Any better ideas, Nerevar?_

Silence. Almsi tried not to roll her eyes.

But then, he was right. He _had_ spent a large portion of his life at war with Nords. Finding out he was, in a way, also a Nord hero had to be disconcerting.

"All right, fine," Lydia said, clearly not seeing how it mattered. "They already said you're _a_ Dragonborn. I was standing right there. So why the treasure hunt?"

"They'll _say_ this is the final test," Almsi said. "This will be some sort of… undeniable proof."

"And you think?"

"I think they have something I want, so they're dangling it out of reach to make me run all over Skyrim for them. I bet they've been trying to get this horn for ages and couldn't manage on their own. Which isn't shocking since I think you and I were the youngest people in High Hrothgar by several centuries. And yes, I do remember how old I am."

"That's a very cynical thought," she said.

"I'm a dunmer. I'm expected to be cynical. It's our most endearing trait."

She laughed. "It's endearing?"

"Not really, but it's still more popular than the rest of them. Which isn't exactly saying much."

Almsi hadn't expected finding the horn to be easy. Things like this never were. But, she hadn't expected it to be a setup, either.

"Blades," she hissed to herself, looking at the ancient chunk of ivory after two weeks of running all over this frozen nation. "Damned Blades. Still a pain in my ass after two hundred years. Couldn't leave a note at the door, no. Had to put it all the way at the end, past the monsters. And I'd really like to know how she managed to leave all of them for us. _Blades._ Malacath take the lot of them." Realizing she was about ten seconds from a complete tantrum, Almsi took a deep breath, counting down from ten in her mind. "Sorry," she said after a moment. "I have a, um… history with the Blades."

"You know, I managed to figure that one out already," Lydia said drily. She was looking at her as though she had gone mad. Almsi probably deserved that. For the Nord woman, this had been a highly successful couple of weeks. They crawled through a dungeon, hauled out a small fortune worth of loot which was quickly sold in a small swamp town called Morthal, got the horn from the Blade agent who had hidden it, and capped it all off by joining her to kill a dragon. As it had fallen, screaming out in death, she noticed Lydia wiping a tear from her otherwise-triumphant looking face. Almsi had been going to her, thinking she should say something, or at the very least put an arm around the woman, when _it_ happened again.

Picking herself up from the ground, where she had dropped to her knees, she was met with two pink faces wearing matched expressions of astonishment: Lydia, and the Breton Blade woman. "Is that going to happen every time?" she demanded of Delphine, the Blade who had beat them to the horn in her attempt to find a Dragonborn.

"I… I have no idea," she admitted. _Can you do it?_ she had asked when Almsi confronted her in Riverwood. _Can you devour a dragon's soul?_

 _Devour makes it sound like I have a choice, like it was something I did intentionally,_ Almsi had replied. _Something just happened to me when it died. I didn't do anything but get knocked on my ass._ The breton woman had looked dubious at the time. She didn't look that way now.

"Feels like I had the wind knocked out of me," she had said. Neither had any reply, they just continued to stare at her like she could vanish in a puff of smoke at any time. "Better than the last time, though."

Lydia had stopped since then, at least. It was only once Almsi had demanded it, though, exclaiming _I'm the same person I was yesterday, quit looking at me like I'm a unicorn._

"One good thing at least," Almsi told her.

"We killed a dragon?"

She glanced over. That hadn't been what she was thinking. It _was_ a good thing, of course. Who wouldn't be happy? She was just stuck remembering how it felt like being kicked in the chest by a giant. "All right," she conceded, "two good things."

"Honestly, we had a detour, but the detour gave us a chance to kill a dragon. That isn't something to complain about. We have that horn, after all."

Almsi hadn't been thinking about _that_ , either.

"If we hadn't spent so much time in that pit Morthal," Lydia went on, "we could have been back with the horn a week ago."

She laughed, glancing over at the Nord. "I was just thinking that was one of the high points of all this."

"You _are_ kidding, right?"

"Not at all," Almsi said. "I'm glad we went. I liked it there, it reminded me of Seyda Neen on Vvardenfall. Except, you know, colder than Molag Bal's heart." That likely meant nothing to Lydia, and in all honesty, Almsi had never been a resident of the Bitter Coast, or even a particular fan of the area. It was Hlaalu territory. She only ventured there on rare occasions, usually to… well, to do something nasty to the Hlaalus at Aryon's request. Still, places that reminded her of anything to do with home were few and far between in this frozen country. "I'm just glad to have met the Jarl," she went on. "That woman… she could be a powerful ally. I like her."

"Jarl _Ravencrone?"_ Lydia looked aghast. "She's a madwoman. I think the only people in Skyrim who take her seriously live right there in her longhouse." Lydia had been uneasy since they left Morthal. She didn't seem to like that the Jarl had so easily named Almsi a Thane, and only seemed to relax when it became clear that the title in Hjaalmarch didn't include a Housecarl.

"Their loss, then," Almsi said. "She's a mystic, and that's a powerful skill." It was strange to be surrounded by people who alternated between fearing and overtly hating magic. If Jarl Ravencrone had been lucky enough to be born Dunmer, she would have been widely respected and eagerly courted by both House Telvanni and the Temple. Instead, she was viewed as a madwoman. It was unfortunate.

Skyrim was such a cold, brutal land… and the people in it seemed set on making things even more difficult for themselves.

She remembered arriving in Vvardenfall. Had it felt so alien to her? It didn't seem possible. Vvardenfall _had_ been dramatically different from the Imperial City, but it had also felt much more... _right._ In a very short amount of time she had come to discover the ways that Morrowind differed from Cyrodiil were, for the most part, easier to accept and far more comfortable than the Imperial province had ever been for her. Of course, part of her had always lived in Morrowind, before the land was even _called_ Morrowind. Her move was as much a return home as it was an emigration. Things like that made Almsi wonder if the ring just gave a voice to something that was already inside her, something that had always made her feel uneasy and out of place in Cyrodiil. After all, it would have been so easy to go back. The two hundred septim she had received in Balmora would have more than paid her way. The thought had never crossed her mind, though. From the moment she stepped off the boat, it had simply felt this was where she should have been all along. As difficult and unwelcoming as it was... the idea of leaving literally never occurred to her. knowing all she did now, Almsi had to wonder how much of that was _him_.

By the time she had returned to the Emperor's representative to find out what they actually wanted from her, only so she could then return to Aryon with the information, the man had been unable to recognize her. He had sent her off, saying she should make a name for herself, so Almsi saw no reason to downplay her accomplishments when she returned. Her expensive blue-green robes and silver staff attracted quite a bit of attention in the Hlaalu town. People were standing in the street, watching her and openly gossiping about a Telvanni daring to show their face in Balmora. The man had pulled her inside, seeing the commotion, and made a comment that she had _gone native_. He didn't seem pleased, but Almsi had taken it as a compliment.

Almsi already knew it didn't matter how long she stayed in Skyrim… no one would be saying that about her this time.


	7. Chapter 7

_Windhelm, 4E_

Lydia looked distracted. "Here," Almsi said, handing her a wrapped bundle.

The Nord sighed. "I am sworn to carry your burdens."

Almsi couldn't stop from rolling her eyes. "Could you _possibly_ sound a bit more put out?" she said. "I'm not asking you to _carry_ something, I'm giving it to you."

"I… oh…" she blushed, unwrapping the hide that had been covering the bundle. A long sword, golden and made in the High Elf style, lay inside.

"I saw you looking at it in the shop," Almsi said. They had stopped in Windhelm so she could hunt down a dress. While Almsi had chatted with the Dunmer shopkeeper Lydia had admired the sword on the shelf, even going so far as to pick it up and give it a couple experimental light swings. It didn't take much to convince the man to throw it in with her other purchases.

"Thank you," she said, already swinging it and testing the balance. "You didn't have to do that."

"Well," she said, "the way I see it, most of the money came from stuff we found _together_ , so it's just as much yours as it is mine. You won't let me _pay_ you, so I'm going to keep buying you things." Lydia didn't argue, but Almsi knew she disagreed. When she sold some of the bones from a dragon they took down, her first thought was that they should split the earnings. It only seemed fair. Lydia had actually been slightly offended. _I'm not a mercenary,_ she had exclaimed.

The Nord woman was holding her sword as she walked, not bothering to hide her smile as she admired the edge on the metal. "Thank you," she said again. "I should probably feel guilty for wanting a Thalmor sword so much…"

Almsi shrugged. "Those swords existed long before the Thalmor," she said.

They passed a couple on the street talking about Azura's summoning day, and Almsi felt the wind knocked out of her.

_Vehk's chanting was soft, indistinct. The words too quiet to hear, or he would have noticed, would have realized they were wrong. The candle smoke was thick and cloying. Ayem had lit them and backed away, uncharacteristically silent. Her profile looked all the more lovely in the dim light. But she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Vehk. That was when he knew Sul had been right about them. He had only a moment to consider that before he began to cough. The room was so hot. His skin was on fire. He couldn't stop coughing. Was that a knife? Why did she have a knife?_

"Are you all right?" Lydia said, sounding worried.

Almsi blinked, trying to will her heart to return to a normal speed. She had started to sweat, and wiped her palms on her cloak. "Sorry," she said, coming up with a quick lie. "I was thinking about Azura. I forgot her summoning day was next month." That worked. It wasn't _entirely_ true, although they had been summoning Azura at the time. Or so she had thought.

So _he_ thought.

Regardless, though, it was certainly better than _I was thinking about that time my wife and two of my closest friends killed me._

"So why did we go to Windhelm again?" Lydia asked after she had satisfied herself that her Thane wasn't about to keel over in the street.

"Because I need a dress," Almsi said. "And I don't think any of yours would fit me."

Delphine, that Blade annoyance, had decided that the _Dominion_ of all people were responsible for the dragons. The idea was more than a bit absurd, but she had been adamant that they were up to something. While that was very likely true, raising dragons from extinction hardly seemed likely. Frankly, if they had even a fraction of that degree of power, the war with the Empire would have lasted a single afternoon, and left the Imperial City a smoking crater in the ground. But, regardless, it had somehow been decided that the perfect opportunity to find out was to infiltrate a party at the Aldmeri Dominion embassy. Because _that_ sounded like it didn't have the potential to go horribly wrong. _Really, I can just sneak in a window_ , Almsi had told her. _I was a thief for years, they'll never know I was there._

That had earned an eye roll from the Blade. Apparently a _true_ warrior would only run face first into danger, no matter how poorly thought out the plan was, and how many better alternatives could be found.

"You could have found something just as appropriate in Solitude and saved us the trip," she said.

"Appropriate for a Nord, maybe," Almsi said. "I've got no idea how someone wealthy from Skyrim should act at a fancy party full of backstabbing cutthroats. I can quite easily be a Telvanni mage-lord at a party full of backstabbing cutthroats, though. I've done it often enough. On either side of the knife." Lydia raised an eyebrow at that. Almsi wasn't about to apologize, though. It wasn't as if House Telvanni went out of their way to keep that aspect of their reputation a secret.

Almsi didn't feel the need to add that she was, on the whole, happier knowing her money went to someone who sincerely, truly _needed_ every single coin that rolled their way, as the impoverished Dunmeri refugees certainly did. That, and it was refreshing to browse a shop in comfort without someone watching her hands waiting for her to pocket something. Or calling her _little elf._

"And the dresses everyone wears here make me look short and dumpy, like I wandered in wearing my winter dressing gown."

Lydia laughed at that. "Well, you are a bit on the shorter side," she admitted.

"Compared to _you_ , sure," she admitted.

"Compared to me and everyone I know." She paused. "You know there's a dark elf in the Companions?"

"Is there?" Almsi didn't see the point.

"He's taller than you." She laughed again.

" _Anyways_ ," Almsi said, ignoring that, "I figured if I have to go and act like I belong there, I'll have an easier time if I'm not worrying about tripping on my hem or thinking about how funny I look." She pulled out a few coins on their hike to the Windhelm stables. "The whole thing is stupid," she admitted as they climbed into the wagon. "I told that woman she should just let me sneak in the back windows."

"You think that would work?"

"I know it would," she replied. "Probably no harder than breaking into an Imperial City jewelry store. Since they're not looking for thieves, and the jewelry store certainly is. I've gotten into tougher places with just my lockpicks."

"So…" Lydia said as they climbed into a carriage. "You were a... a _thief_?"

"I was," Almsi said. "In the guild and everything. But that was a long time ago." Lydia looked horrified. "Really?" Almsi groaned when the Nord woman not-so-casually laid a hand over her pack. "All right, then," she sighed. Lydia had been a guard… she couldn't _entirely_ fault her for being so paranoid. "Just so you don't think I'll run off with your gear in the night. I grew up in an orphanage in the Imperial city, and when they kicked me out at seventeen, I was homeless. A member of the guild took me in when he found me frozen and starving."

She noticed Lydia starting to squirm, guilt on her features, and decided to go a little further… just to make sure this never came up again. "Truth is, I was so desperate I originally tried to whore myself to him. Apparently I didn't make a very convincing prostitute, but he brought me along with him on his job that night, and then took me back to his house where I ate half the food in his kitchen before sleeping for two days straight in his daughter's old bedroom. When I woke up he took me to meet the guild. I signed on that day and stayed with them for about twenty years." She couldn't help thinking back. "Melar had died by the time I was deported… he was the man who took me in. Nice old Dunmer man, he pretty much adopted me. Without him there, well, it really wasn't the same. I had nothing to go back to." In truth, once he had died, she had become extremely reckless. Having no one else, he had left his small Imperial City home to Almsi. However, she didn't bring in even close to enough to keep the taxes paid. She took riskier jobs, made bolder moves. It was no wonder she was caught.

Lydia mumbled something about Stendarr's mercy, looking at her with pity. She really didn't like being looked at with pity... but it was an improvement over contempt. "How did he die?" she finally asked.

"Old age," Almsi said. "In his own bed, with his closest friends nearby." She had gathered with some of the other guild members when the time came. When he had gone, and the city's lone, overworked Dunmer priest came for the body, they all went downstairs and got extraordinarily drunk. Even her normally stoic Redguard doyen had shed a tear. She had woke the next day with the worst headache in her life, and a deeply apologetic Altmer pickpocket in her bed who was equally unclear on just what had happened the night before… although they were able to make a few educated guesses.

"We should all be so fortunate," Lydia said. Almsi wondered if she was thinking of her father. It seemed likely. Regardless, though, she couldn't disagree. Dying in comfort, with people who love you there to hold your hands; what more could someone want?

At the end Melar had called her by his daughter's name, a daughter Almsi never knew. But he had been doing that frequently in the final weeks. It made sense… his daughter should have been the one there caring for him, spoon feeding him soup and keeping him comfortable. The woman had moved to Vvardenfall years ago, was married, had a son. She should have looked her up in Vvardenfall… but never did since she knew the girl disapproved of her father's work. Too late now. At the end Melar thought she was there. The idea was comforting. He was the first person who had ever actually cared about her, not because he had to but because he chose to. She felt better thinking he died happy.

* * *

_Tel Vos, 3E_

Almsi was upset when she got back to Tel Vos. The information she had found in Balmora, well… it made no sense. She copied it out word for word, and then to make sure she hadn't made an error, she switched the copies so Aryon could have the original. For as much good as it would do. It was gibberish. The things she _could_ read were just as useless. Ancient legends, ashlander superstition, first era prophesies… why the empire would care, she had no idea.

It was annoying. Aryon had been so excited he might be the first to discover some great Imperial plot. And now she came back with garbage. He would be disappointed, and he was probably the last person on all of Mundus she wanted to disappoint. He would never blame her, of course, but that didn't matter.

Things had been going so well just before she left, too. She had woke in his bed… alone, to her slight annoyance. Regardless, she had pulled the blankets up, burrowing deeper and enjoying the moment. His bedding was smooth and soft, much nicer than anything she had ever owned, and the bed itself was huge. _This is a bed for two people_ , she mused. It didn't smell like a woman, though, other than the traces of her own perfume she had left behind. All she could smell were alchemical herbs, faint hints of expensive cologne, masculine musk, and an undercurrent of something that reminded her of spark spells. In short, it smelled like him. That was about when she pulled herself away, before Aryon caught her with her face buried in the pillows, sniffing away like a lunatic.

Almsi found Aryon already awake, still sitting on the floor, surrounded by books. He had ink smeared across one cheek, and sat still while she rubbed it off with a clean handkerchief dipped in a water glass, smiling up at her. She suspected he hadn't slept. She also suspected that wasn't unusual for him. He had been shocked to see her, but it turned out it was only because her hair was down. _I had no idea it was so long,_ he had commented, actually giving it a gentle yank as he laughed. "Amazing how you hide it all up there." She probably pulled the pins out before falling asleep. In all honesty, she had been so drunk Almsi couldn't even remember getting into the bed in the first place.

Aryon had breakfast brought up for both of them, much to the Argonian servant's amusement. The woman had eyed her disheveled hair and bare feet, and his unshaven face, without a word... but she hadn't bothered hiding her chuckle as she left. "Stop looking at me like that, she's not a slave," he said quietly as the woman slipped out. "I don't live in the past. The rest of our house needs to join me in the modern age if they want to survive, instead of withering on the vine like Dres."

That hadn't been what she was thinking, although once _he_ said it, she realized her priorities were probably broken. All Almsi had been thinking what that, if his staff didn't assume they were sleeping together before, they certainly would _now_. Not that the rumor was offensive… she was more bothered that it remained merely a rumor.

He had taught her to levitate as soon as they finished eating, and forced her to practice, again and again. First in his study, Aryon had her attempt to cross the room, catching her when she didn't quite manage the landing… or the staying aloft part. Once he was satisfied that was mastered, they moved on to going down the stairs and back up again, before finally going outside well after dark.

"Be happy," he had told her with a smirk, hovering at eye level while she stood at the edge of the platform. "You don't _want_ to know how I learned. _"_ Almsi had asked, of course. "My grandfather game me an hour to practice," he said, coaxing her to step off the edge, "and then he brought me outside and pushed me." They landed safely on top of the tower, sitting on top of the giant mushroom. "Of course," Aryon had said _, "_ he wasn't a maniac. He had three of his apprentices already in place and ready to catch me if I failed. I didn't know that until after, though." He actually smiled at the memory.

"Gods!" Almsi had exclaimed, feeling sympathetic horror. "You must have been terrified."

"I was twelve years old," Aryon said. "Of course I was terrified. But… I did it." He looked unconcerned. "I should have known he had a backup in place… I _was_ his only heir. That, and, well… he was my grandfather. Even the worst of this house doesn't make a habit of killing their grandchildren. We're nobility, not _monsters_. Or royals." She laughed and he went on. "Levitation is one of those skills best learned young. But since you were adopted into the house instead of born, you have a lot of catching up to do." She didn't argue. "Besides, you've already got the most difficult parts down."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Oh, the manipulation, lying, theft, and murder, without a doubt. Funny thing, up until yesterday I had been operating on the assumption that adapting to _those_ would be your greatest challenge."

She winced, vague memories of telling him far more about her life prior to arriving in Vvardenfall than she had ever wanted to share coming to the surface. "Are you disappointed?"

"Should I be?" he looked genuinely curious. "I'm actually relieved. I had been feeling guilty for corrupting a sweet, innocent girl from Cyrodiil up until now." Almsi couldn't decide if he was sincere or flirting. And didn't know which would be stranger.

"I have to ask," she said instead, "how did _you_ ever manage to end up on the Council." She had been curious, but the time was never quite right. There was really no way to say _you aren't nearly as crazy or cruel as the rest of them_ without sounding… slightly traitorous. Aryon seemed to be in a talkative mood, though, and was already thrilled she had learned to levitate. Now was as good a time as any. "It doesn't seem… _you_. And you're nowhere near old enough to just force your way on like Fyr could."

"Hard work," he said quickly. "Perseverance, dedication, ambitio—" Aryon broke off, unable to keep his face straight, falling to his back laughing. "I inherited my seat from my grandfather," He said finally, propping himself up on his elbows. "Really? Do you honestly think any of them would give me a scrap of power if they could help it?" She probably looked shocked. "Welcome to the nobility," he told her. "Old names, old money, old ideas, and _especially_ old power. You have to be a _very_ special person to get within a mile of the council hall if you weren't born to a ranking Telvanni family."

"Explain how I got there, then," Almsi said, laughing.

"I thought I just did." He smiled and Almsi became certain he _was_ flirting. She had stammered out some reply of thanks, probably blushing purple straight to the roots of her hair. The comment had kept a silly smile on her face right until she got to Balmora. Right until Almsi realized the amazing information she had to bring him was a couple pages of gibberish and some documents on an ancient legend he had probably considered foolish more than a century before she was born.

It was difficult to walk into Tel Vos without looking miserable. To make matters worse, she had bags under her eyes from a lack of sleep. While staying in Balmora she had woke to someone pounding on the wall of her room in the cornerclub, evidently disturbed by the way she was shouting in her sleep. From what she recalled of the nightmare… an eerie voice, a dark room filled with dead bodies, somehow knowing she, too, was dead... well, it wasn't surprising she screamed.

Rest didn't seem quite so attractive since then. Almsi steeled herself before climbing the stairs, trying not to look unhappy.

Aryon was standing with his back to the door, in the middle of casting a spell. Something glowed near his feet, and several open books surrounded him. With a gesture it faded and vanished before he turned around. "That bad?"

"How can you tell?"

"Something in your footsteps just sounded… defeated," Aryon said. "Did you get caught?"

"It's just not good information." She rolled her eyes. "And _no_ , I didn't get caught," Almsi said. "Don't insult me, I'm a professional. Or, well, I was. I'm not about to be caught by some moonsugar addled Imperial." Almsi would never have dreamed of snapping at Aryon, but exhaustion had worn her patience thin.

He hardly seemed to notice her annoyed tone, though. "I caught you pocketing the money when we had lunch in Vos," Aryon said with a grin, actually shaking a finger at her. "After the owner wouldn't let me pay."

"And yet you somehow managed to miss where I slipped it into _his_ _pocket_ before we left?" she asked. He looked surprised. "That's what I always do; he never lets me pay, either." She had heard the bartender gossiping with a patron once, assuming the money appeared through some ancient Telvanni magic she had mastered. Reverse pickpocketing was far too mundane for the average wizard noble, apparently. "Gods, Aryon, you think I just _stole_ from you? I wasn't trying to hide anything from you since I assumed you would figure out what I was doing!"

He shrugged. "It was pocket change. I was actually just impressed you dared."

She stared at him, unable to reply. "You are really the strangest person I've ever met," was all Almsi could finally say.

Aryon laughed. "You would be surprised how often I hear that. Or perhaps not." He walked over, grabbing her bag. "Let's see this useless information." He began unloading things. " _The War of the First Council_ ," Aryon said, setting the book aside. " _Saint Nerevar_. _Nerevar Moon-and-Star_ ," two more went onto the pile. " _The Real Nerevar_. I'm seeing a theme here."

"Pretty much," Almsi agreed, handing over the rest of the paperwork. "They were interesting and all... but what's the point?" She had read all the books, one after another, on the strider and ferry. Nerevar _was_ a fascinating figure... but she got the impression something was missing. Maybe he had some horrible secret the Tribunal wanted hushed, so the saint's image wouldn't be damaged. She had no idea, Almsi only knew each book felt like there was a big hole in the middle where information should have been.

Aryon skimmed the notes from the Fighters' Guild man first. " _Sixth house, Dagoth Ur, blah blah blah,"_ he mumbled, tossing it aside. "Bizarre. Ancient history, and quite public knowledge at that. What else?" She handed him the next sheath of papers. "Oh, now this is far more interesting," Aryon said.

"It is?"

"Blasphemy and heresy are always interesting," he replied. "Two of my favorite things." He glanced up. "Not to offend your Temple-going sensibilities." She chuckled, blushing when he winked. "What _are_ they planning. Stirring up the Ashlanders, maybe? Destabilizing the Tribunal? Ha, good luck with _that_ …" He read through the pages, making sounds of concentration. "Nothing world-shattering," he said, "interesting, but I can't quite piece together the ultimate goal."

"Here," she said, sighing. "This, I recognized. It's the notes they gave me to deliver when I got to Vvardenfall. It's worse than that Sload spellbook of yours."

He stared at the page. "You copied it exactly?"

"I switched the copies, just to make sure yours was the accurate one. This is the original."

He beamed at her. "Do you know what this is?" Aryon asked, waving the paper triumphantly. Almsi shook her head. "It's _code_. Imperials love code. Give me a few days, I'll have it figured out. Whatever they're doing… I'm _sure_ this will tell us. And if it's important enough for them to encode it…" He clapped his hands, looking triumphant. "Not to put the cart before the guar," he said, "but I suspect we're about to become _far_ more powerful thanks to whatever this letter says."

For a moment she was sure, absolutely and completely sure, he was going to kiss her. But, just as suddenly, he tensed and stepped back several paces. He stared at her for a moment before turning quickly on his heel. All business once more, Aryon walked to his desk, his back to her. She winced when he swept an armful of clutter to the floor before sitting down, paper spread out before him.

"Ayem's mercy," she grumbled, walking over and bending to pick up the mess. "Do you have any idea how much some of these things are worth, Aryon?" A tangle of amulets were on the floor, mixed in with a small pile of soul gems and a of bottle ink, mercifully still capped.

"Not offhand," he said, tearing himself from the page and glancing down. "Eh, they're rubbish. Take them, if you like." She looked at one, an amulet of red and blue, with a giant stone atop set into gold. It was gaudy, but looked to be ancient. Ancient, and probably worth a fortune. " _Not_ that one," he said, snatching it from her hand.

"Why? What is it?" she was trying to place the symbol carved into the massive stone. It seemed so familiar... but she didn't know why.

"The person who got it for me swears it came from beyond the ghostgate." He set it aside, wiping his hand on his robe. "Since that's the symbol of the sixth house on it, I'm inclined to think it's true. The thing practically reeks of _wrong_. Don't touch it." He looked down at the pile. "There, the one with the two carved horns. Take that. And hand me the ink."

She passed the bottle up and inspected the amulet he directed her to, carefully setting the rest on a sideboard. "What is it?"

"Almsivi intervention," he said.

She laughed. "Since when are you so devout?"

"Since I know you came back covered in blood last week, and most was your own," he said. "I don't want it happening again. If you get yourself killed, I _will_ resurrect your corpse just so you can listen to me telling you what a fool you were. If you have any hopes for a peaceful afterlife, use that next time."

"All right," she said, clipping it on. "You really think the other's a sixth house artifact?"

"Yes, why?"

Almsi shrugged. She regretted speaking, and Aryon stood, leaning against his desk to stare at her, demanding an answer. "Just… odd. All this stuff about them, and some crazy guy in Balmora…"

"What?" She looked away and he made an impatient sound. " _What_ , Almsi?"

"Some guy in Balmora stopped me when I was walking to the slit strider, and told me that I should go to Red Mountain. To join the Sixth House. He said they had been sleeping, but were awake now." She shook her head. "It sounds dumb now, saying it out loud. It seemed so crazy at the time, but I guess it's one of those things… you learn something new and suddenly see it everywhere. I've probably heard Voryn Dagoth mentioned a hundred times, and just never noticed since it didn't mean anything to me."

He raised an eyebrow. "I… I don't really think _House Dagoth_ is something that you just didn't notice before." Aryon bit his lip, looking concerned. "This entire thing makes no sense. I can't wait until I get this decoded; it feel like we're stumbling in the dark, and frankly, there's nothing I hate more." She couldn't disagree. "What did the Imperial spy want you to do next?"

"Talk to someone in Vivec," she said. "Morag Tong."

"Well _that's_ just wonderful," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Let's hope this one keeps his blades to himself." He looked bothered by it, but grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment, scribbling instructions for House business she could take care of at the same time. "Be cautious. Poison your blades before you go. Gods know they will. Come back here before you go to Balmora, and keep that damned amulet on."

She agreed, but couldn't help but notice that, as she prepared to leave, Aryon was sitting silently at his desk once more. Papers abandoned, he held the amulet by its chain and stared at it with a mixture of revulsion and intense curiosity.

* * *

Tel Vos, 3E

Aryon stared at the paper. It hadn't taken him two days to decipher, as he had egotistically predicted. It had taken more than a week. None of the usual Imperial codes worked. They tended to stick to obvious keywords, things they would remember. Talos was popular, as was TiberSeptim. Once he had even seen one that used Cyrodiil. So far he had tried most of the famous emperor's names, the cities of Cyrodill, the nations of the empire, Aedra, the Daedra... nothing. It was only when he tossed his pen aside in frustration that the answer came to him. Mostly since his pen landed on top of the answer. _The following are notes prepared by Hasphat Antabolis for Caius Cosades_ , the page read.

he paused before grabbing the encoded document again. Checking against the key, he tried one final word: Cosades.

The heading began to unravel itself, words from nonsense. It worked.

 _Spymaster Caius Cosades_  
Knight-Errant of the Imperial Order of Blades  
Director of Imperial Intelligence in Vvardenfell District, Eastern Provinces

Almsi had found herself in _very_ unusual company, he observed, continuing to translate. Knowing that the Empire had a skooma addict running their entire Vvardenfall intelligence operation didn't do wonders for his opinions of them, though his opinion was never exactly positive in the first place. Vaguely, he wondered how things were going for her in Vivec. Of course, once his mind went there, any hope of productive work vanished. He instead found himself thinking about the night before she had left.

_They stayed up nearly until dawn, sitting on the floor, passing a bottle back and forth, and talking. He couldn't remember the last time he had spent so long talking with someone… or drank quite so much. He also couldn't remember the last time he had been so pleased to actually have another person's company. Aryon liked being alone, it was rare he could tolerate someone for more than a few hours. He recalled her talking about growing up in the Imperial City, about the man who took her in as a young woman, about her life after he had passed on. Aryon had told her about the death of his parents, so many years ago, and being raised by his grandfather. Officially, they died in a small skirmish with House Redoran. Unofficially, it carried the stink of Archmagister Gothren, who had long been his family's greatest rival within the house. He was fairly certain she was the only person he had revealed that suspicion to, and now wondered what compelled him._

_She had taken his hand then, eyes wide with sympathy. "Then… you were an orphan, just like me."_

_While it might have been true in the most **technical** sense, Aryon had no illusions. His parents were dead, but he was raised by a brilliant, caring grandfather who took great pains to ensure his only living family would be ready for a place on the council when the time came… even if it ended up being several centuries earlier than anyone expected. On top of that, Aryon had been surrounded by the kind of wealth few on Vvardenfall, or even in the Imperial City, could fathom. It hardly seemed fair to compare his upbringing to the suffering she must have endured being condemned to an indifferent orphanage in a distant barbarian land._

_He didn't argue with her, though. He **should** have, but she was still holding his hand and he found that he really didn't want that to stop. So he had nodded, mumbling some kind of agreement._

Shaking his head, Aryon forced himself back to the present moment, to focus on work once more. Another sentence done:

_I have the honor to acquaint you with his Majesty's wishes concerning Almsi, an individual of no rank or consequence._

Aryon blinked. That wasn't what he expected. He had assumed she was simply being forced into the role of a courier, not that it had anything to do with her personally. He pushed on, mind still threatening to wander. He remembered how she had fallen asleep against his shoulder while they sat on the floor. Not wanting to simply leave her there, he had carried her downstairs himself.

 _Focus, Aryon_ , he demanded of himself, and pushed on. A bit of uselessness followed, something about making her a Blade… a position she clearly cared nothing about at this point, given that she had immediately told Aryon the same. It was a poor move on the Empire's part. They should have told her immediately, made her feel special and important as soon as she arrived. Sending her off as they did, well… it only gave someone else the chance to step in and claim her loyalty instead.

_A local superstition holds that an orphan and outcast, a youth born on a certain day to uncertain parents,  
_ _shall unite all the tribes of the Dunmer, drive out the invaders of Morrowind, and shall reestablish the ancient  
laws and customs of the Dark Elven nations. This orphan and outcast is called in legend the "Nerevarine,"  
and is supposed to be a reincarnation of the long-dead Dunmer General and First Councilor, Lord Indoril Nerevar._ __  


His heart began to speed up as he reread that passage over and over again, confirming his decryption was accurate. The books, the notes… it was starting to make sense. But as he put the pieces together, Aryon realized he didn't quite like the shape they were taking. He found himself worried about continuing on. So much that he actually encouraged his mind to wander, not wanting to know what the rest of the document held.

He would have been better off to continue the translation.

_Almsi hadn't moved while he carried her down the stairs, so he was shocked she opened her eyes as soon as her head touched the pillow."Wait", she had said, sitting up almost immediately._

_"What?" Was all he could think to say._

_"Don't go, Aryon", she repeated, kneeling on the bed and putting her hands on his shoulders. "Stay with me." He had been ready to ask what she was talking about, even though he knew **exactly** what she was talking about. His words were cut short, though, when Almsi yanked him closer to her. The only sound that escaped was one of surprise, and that was muffled when her lips crashed into his._

_Her mouth was like fire, and Aryon realized he was returning the kiss with equal intensity. Her lips were still sweet from the liquor they had been drinking, and her tongue carried the flavor of the spicy aftertaste. A mixture of hard muscle and soft curves were pressed against him. His hands were already beginning to explore the new landscape, one sliding down the curve of a waist, the other over the swell of her backside. She pressed into him and he realized her entire body was as warm as her mouth. How can she stand it? he recalled wondering at the time, before realizing he had been pulling her steadily closer, as if trying to surround himself with that heat. Almsi took his lower lip between her teeth, and he couldn't stop himself from moaning aloud._

_Her mouth moved to his neck, lips and teeth exploring flesh that hadn't known a woman's touch in a very long time. He gasped and she giggled, followed by a slight hiccup._

_That drunken sound hit him like a bucket of cold water. "Wait, no," he had said, managing to untangle himself from her. "Stop. We can't do this."_

_"Yes we can", she had said, looking confused. "Why not?"_

_There were a dozen reasons why not, but for a moment all he could think about was how badly he wanted those fingers in his hair again, the nails against the back of his neck. Aryon took a breath, stepping further away. "You're drunk", he told her finally._

_"So are you," she countered._

_"I know," he said. "That's why. We shouldn't…" he wasn't thinking clearly. She looked hurt, rejected, and he closed his eyes for a moment to block it out. It didn't help. "I don't want you to wake up tomorrow and not know what happened," he said finally. "Or regret it. Let's… we should talk about this when we're sober. All right?"_

_He couldn't recall his mind and body ever being more at odds._

_She nodded, though, and looked slightly less sad when she laid back down. Her eyes were already drifting closed, and he knew it was the right decision. He pulled the blankets up over her and, on impulse, brushed a lock of hair back from her face that had come free. He was surprised when she leaned up, planting a soft kiss on the skin of his wrist as his hand pulled back. "Night," was all she said before rolling to her side and curling up. "And thank you."_

_"For what?"_

_"Everything," was her reply, eyes already closed. If he wanted an explanation, it would need to wait, though, since she had finally been claimed by sleep._

Aryon had managed to pull away that night, using far more willpower than he could recall ever needing for a spell. Instead, he threw himself headlong into work, desperate for a distraction. He was still buried in a treatise on conjuration techniques practiced in High Rock when she woke up. She hadn't seemed upset, so he assumed that meant she didn't regret it.

He had spent most of the day acting far more familiar than normal before realizing she didn't even _remember_.

Now, staring at the document, he wondered if that door had closed all together.

_Almsi has the appearance of meeting the conditions of this local superstition. Therefore it is his Majesty's desire that  
Almsi shall, insofar as is possible, satisfy the conditions of this ancient prophecy, and shall become the Nerevarine._

_Though this prophecy is indeed only an ancient local superstition, his Majesty has taken counsel on this matter with his_  
most expert informants and confidants, and his Majesty is persuaded that the prophecy is genuine and significant,  
either in its entirety, or in its several parts, and he earnestly demands you treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.

Letting out a long breath, he wondered what he could possibly tell her when she returned. _So the Emperor wants you to be the prophesied savior of the Dunmer people and, by the way, you likely can't remember the night you tried to pull me into bed with you, but I've found I'm not able to think of anything else._

Aryon sighed, putting his feelings aside for the moment. He had to focus. This was more important than his personal life... or lack thereof.

He could see now why the Empire was interested. A Neverarine under Imperial control? Now that would be something they could use. Providing, of course, that the Temple didn't stomp her out as they had to all the other false Nerevarines before.

But then, he knew Almsi. And he knew she would _never_ be content to accept Imperial control.

Now… a _Telvanni_ Nerevarine, _that_ was something else... He would need to find a way to keep her safe from the Temple, though. That, above all, was critical. Aryon shuddered in horror at the idea of her run through by an Ordinator's blade. If he could manage that much... well, no one would question the superiority of House Telvanni again. Not if the Incarnate was among them. No one would question _him_ again.

Aryon glanced over, seeing the Sixth House amulet. Strange, that she gravitated towards it so quickly. Something else from that day came back to him. Almsi, leaning on a sideboard, arms folded. _I've probably heard Voryn Dagoth mentioned a hundred times, and just never noticed._

He pulled over the documents prepared for the Blade. _Dagoth Ur,_ they said. He opened the books, quickly flipping ahead to the relevant passages. _Dagoth Ur_ there as well.

He was completely, absolutely sure she had _never_ heard a soul mention _Voryn Dagoth_ … because no one had called Dagoth Ur by that name in centuries. Not since the First Era. He only knew it from his studies of ancient history.

So why did she know it?

He shuddered, realizing that he was allowing the Emperor's machinations to impact his own thoughts, forcing false coincidences and patterns into his memories. Aryon tried to decide the best way to break this to her. She wouldn't be happy regardless... but if he could convince her it would be to the benefit of the House, she would do whatever was asked. However, each time he tried to predict her reaction in his mind, he could only see the way she quickly grabbed for that amulet, moving so fast Aryon was expecting to find he had somehow let an enormous diamond necklace get mixed into the rubbish. Then he had watched as her thief-trained eyes somehow managed to ignore the enormous sapphire on the front in favor of the simple, worthless house emblem carved into the back.

Folding the translation, he locked it in a cabinet. Carrying the key to his bedroom, he slipped it under a stack of folded robes in a wardrobe. Having no better ideas of what to do, Aryon stretched out on his bed and fell into an uneasy sleep.


End file.
